I'm backkk with a complete story this time! It'll be a four-part story with maybeee an epilogue, and I'll update it in two to three days, so I hope you guys enjoy it!
Summary: I can't spoil this too much or it'll lose the fun ahhsush so here is a short description:
What if kissing your soulmate made one of them shrink or grow? And what would happen if that relationship didn't work out?
EDIT: I forgot to tell the age rating. It's generally PG-13 but it will contain some adult themes that may not be suitable to minors.
Anyway enjoy!
........................................
Liam was a practical man. You find someone attractive, start a conversation, and see if you connect. You might even begin a relationship, and invest in it if it's worthwhile. That's how he viewed things, simple and to the point. No red strings of fate attached. No flowery novel to complicate things.
Which is why living in a world of soulmates was like a utopia straight out of a fairytale, but this was the world Liam lived in, whether he liked it or not. Soulmates exist, and when they kiss, one of them either shrinks or grows. It's random, instantaneous, and permanent. Liam was used to this mess, he was born in it, saw it on his day-to-day life, with his dad and his four-inch-tall mother.
Yet this reality made no sense. It didn't, at all. If a person is another one's soulmate, why would a kiss make it harder for them to love each other by creating such a big size difference? It's an unnecessary obstacle for these so called "meant to be" couples. Were they really soulmates to begin with? Were "soulmates" meant to be something else all along?
Liam didn't get it, nor did he care to get it. Just lived in his lane with his beliefs and moved on.
That was until he met Evelyn.
Evelyn humbled Liam – devastatingly so. "You only know it when you feel it", now he understood what they meant. Seeing his soulmate for the first time was like catching on fire. Her oval face adorned with those sharp, blue eyes, short black hair framing her features, that sly smile and confident attitude, all of Evelyn made Liam starstruck. It was like live electricity coursing through him, like the tip of a magnet that attracted them to each other no matter the circumstance.
A man is blinded by love, Liam knew that.
He just wished he took that phrase more seriously before he kissed her.
Before the day everything came crashing down.
..........................................
He called Evelyn to come over, a determined urge begging him to kiss her, that weird impulse so strong Liam struggled to think it wasn't right. It couldn't be wrong. How could it be, when they were so perfect for each other? If one grows or shrinks, it didn't matter. Everything he believed about soulmates before didn't matter.
She came to his house, already knowing what he implied, no doubt or hesitation in her eyes. Their date had started just like any other, they sat on a tablecloth in his backyard, admiring the stars and talking about everything, as if to delay the inevitable. Until she edged closer, leaning over him, her natural glow looking even more captivating under the dim light, raw curiosity brimming in her piercing gaze. Without a word, she touched her lips with his.
And he let her.
Sparks and fireworks fluttered in Liam's stomach like static. He leaned into the kiss, heat blooming inside his chest. Never had he felt so alive and complete. The more their lips locked, the more Liam craved for it; and the more he set his old beliefs aside, the more he gave in to the kiss. He didn't care when he felt himself change. Didn't care when he felt an inward pressure increasing, bones cracking and skin stretching. Didn't care when the earth groaned beneath him as he grew. He didn't care as his chest broadened, ripping the stitches of his shirt, nor when his arms enveloped more of Evelyn's form. He didn't care when he got so big he surpassed the height of his house. He even laughed it off, looming playfully over a baffled Evelyn and joking about his sorry state. After the initial shock, she didn't mind it either, relaxing under his gentle, growing touch, relishing in the feel of his form filling up space around her.
It felt right, Liam said inside his head. He never minded being a giant. The consequences, he'd deal with that later. Right now, the only thing that mattered was his soulmate, curled up, looking tiny and cute in his cupped hand.
That's what he had said back then.
If only he could take it back.
..........................................
It came as a shock to him when he found out, like watching a scene from the outside looking in, thinking the events were happening to anyone but him.
It couldn't be, soulmates were meant for each other, weren't they?
He arrived home earlier than usual, having finished his construction job sooner. He planned to make a surprise dinner for her, carrying a tiny, to him, bouquet of roses in one hand and a massive grocery bag in the other.
Liam entered the house quietly, wondering why all the lights were off. He decided that surprising her would be easier this way, so he tiptoed, as much as he could being over a hundred feet tall, and entered their room quietly, turning to the direction of Evelyn's small bed. There was a moving lump under the bedsheets. Liam frowned. Soft moaning came from under the covers.
Those breaths didn't belong to just one pair of lungs.
Liam flicked the light on and two figures jumped out from the bedsheets. Bouquet and grocery bags clattered on the floor with a booming thud. His girlfriend gasped at him with a terrified look on her face, covering her naked body as a man sat up on the bed next to her, looking just as mortified.
Liam opened his mouth. Closed it. There was nothing to say. A strange man with his girlfriend. Both naked on the bed. Both same size.
Suddenly, all her complaints from these past few weeks made sense. Her discomfort when he touched on the subject of intimacy, the recent cold shoulders every time he initiated affection. Everything clicked in place like puzzle pieces.
"Liam, I… Look. I–we can talk." - Evelyn stammered as the guy beside her frantically put his clothes on.
"I don't see anything worth talking about here." - Liam said, unnaturally calm, not caring that his voice rolled through the room like thunder. - "Send him home."
"Look, you're over reacting. He's just" - she tsked. - "Damn it, he was just -"
"Evelyn. Send. Him. Out."
She side-eyed her human "partner". He clambered off the bed and rushed to the stairs, casting one terrified glance up at Liam, who took a single step forward, glaring down with the hardest face he could muster, a looming shadow cast from his massive form. The dipshit cowered in terror and fled. Good.
The air fell silent with a tension that could be cut with a knife. Rage bubbled up in Liam's chest, but he gulped it down. He couldn't lash out. He couldn't ever since he grew, lest he scare others or worse. He did this and other sacrifices for her. He did it all for her.
But what did that all come to, huh?
So much so for his perfect little soulmate.
Only one word came out of his dry mouth.
"Why?"
Evelyn spluttered on her words.
"Wha — Why do you think, Liam? I, I had sex with him, okay? I'll admit it. But it was just a one-night stand and I... It wasn't love or anything, I just — I just couldn't take it anymore!"
Liam's voice remained calm and controlled, words gritting through his teeth. His brows knit with indignation.
"And what exactly you couldn't take?"
"This whole... Soulmates thing! The kiss, it was all – Look, I've missed it, okay? I've missed doing it the way normal people do –"
"Normal people?"
"No, that's not –"
"We were normal! Before you leaned in for the kiss and said you wouldn't mind!" - his voice thundered through the room as Liam ignored Evelyn's hard flinch.
"And don't you think that was hard for me too? Having to go through the fear of changing?"
"But I went through that! I went through hell like this, and you know how much - "
"Yeah, I know! But you're not the only one going through hell because of it, Liam! I couldn't take it anymore!"
"You couldn't?" - his loud voice raised, echoing across the bedroom. - "I couldn't take it Evelyn, but I still stayed fucking loyal to you!"
Liam’s deafening shout rumbled through her and she flinched, her hands flying up to cover her ears, tiny form cowering against the bed. Her terrified expression snapped Liam out of his anger. That's how she saw him since the kiss, wasn't it? Something other, something non-human, who she cowers away from. He can't even express normal emotions without scaring his own soulmate. Liam gulped down his anger and took a deep breath.
He knew what he had to do.
"If we both can't take it anymore, Evelyn...
... Then let's just end it."
..........................................
"Have soulmates broken up?"
Liam tentatively typed through his custom-made computer, the motions slow and hesitant. Some pages came up, all focusing on making up with your partner. He sighed and deleted the words.
"Have kissed soulmates broken up?"
He typed it and deleted it, hands hovering on the keyboard. Then he typed it again, pressing enter. Nothing came up.
"I've broken up with my soulmate, what now?"
All that he got were the same results from his first search. "Make up", "get back together", all appearing in an annoying loop of endless browsing pages.
He's been doing this for the past few weeks. Honestly, what was he thinking?
Did he think he'd just, shrink or something after they ended it? It was his stupidity. It was because of him believing in this soulmate bullshit that he ended up like this anyway.
Liam laid down on his bed with a sigh, a tiny bed with a thin mattress in his very barren, cramped one-room apartment. He used to live pretty comfortably before he grew, but now this tiny studio was all he could afford. It had the cheapest bed he could find, a simple wooden table, and a hotplate in the far corner of the room. Giant commodities were expensive to begin with.
His dream job? Gone. It was clear why they couldn't accept giant employees to work on Architecture, so now he's a construction worker. How fitting. Liam ran his hands through his face with a long sigh. It was his day off, and he was determined to spend it alone and sulking. No need for self pity when he knew the consequences of all he's done.
It was his fault in the end.
Liam sighed and turned on his phone again, going through his searches, thinking it all pointless until, to his surprise, he found cases like his on the fourth or fifth pages of his search. He raised his eyebrows, and scrolled. People who were cheated on by their soulmate, some were even abused by them, and left to deal with the consequences of the kiss. A part of him felt relief. But another part felt hollow.
What now? What can be do? Will he just live his life like this? When he had Evelyn, everything had a purpose. But now?
His train of thought was interrupted by a video call.
The face and name on the screen made his heart ache. ‘Mom’. Ever since he grew, he wasn't able to interact with his mom anymore. She was only four inches tall, after all, so video calls became their only form of communication. The thought made Liam's heart heavy, but maybe a talk with his mom was what he needed at that moment. He took a deep breath and answered the call.
"Hey mom."
"So, how's my son doing at his new apartment?" – his mom asked happily from the other side of the screen in a clear attempt to cheer him up. Although it was ineffective, Liam appreciated it.
"It's small, but doable. I'll be fine."
His mother frowned in concern. She always knew when he was lying.
"Dear, it's okay if you're still feeling down."
Liam sighed. There was nothing that she could do, was there? Even if he wanted to hug her, he couldn't do that anymore. When he was normal sized, at least he could hold his mom gently, but now? She'd look smaller than an ant to him. Interacting with a shrunken, as a giant, was nearly impossible, even if it was his own mother. A lump formed in Liam's throat, but he ignored it and gave his mom a tiny smile.
"Thanks, mom. I'll be okay. It'll just take me a few days to get over this."
"I get it. It isn't easy, is it?" – she gave him a sad smile.
"Yeah. Wish I could see you right now."
His mom's smile turned sadder. She knew too well how that would turn out.
"Me and your dad ordered some things for you, they should arrive soon so, make sure to take them!" – she returned to her cheery tone, another clear attempt at lighting the mood.
"Thanks, mom. I'll call you later."
They said their goodbyes and turned off the call. Yeah, Liam felt a hundred times worse, as he expected. He rubbed his hands over his face and curled up in bed. Turning his phone on, in a comfortable numbness, he began to doom scroll. Random videos here, stupid searches there. With a zombie-like automation to his fingers, he typed a new topic on the search bar:
"dating app ex soulmates"
..........................................
His parents' gift was a collection of giant tools and house utensils, some kitchen appliances, and a magnifying glass to read those tiny texts human products came with. He sent his mom and dad a thanks before an interesting search result caught his interest.
“Soulkissed”, that was the name of the website. The “About” page unraveled an extension of the title:
"A place for those broken by their soulmate. Find your loved one beyond what was designated to you."
'Sounds intriguing', he thought. Was this what Liam was finally looking for? A way to move on, maybe even ease the pain in his heart, even if just for a little bit. If Liam could find a new "soulmate", maybe he could close this chapter of his life for good.
Without giving it a second thought, he read through the intro, and signed himself up.
The proposition of the website was simple. A place for people who were deluded by their soulmates, who kissed each other and changed sizes, thinking everything would be perfect, until their soulmate left them for one reason or another. Liam didn't know this was common enough for a website. Maybe his previous beliefs on soulmates were right. Maybe because all that was ever marketed to society was how perfect soulmates were, without ever acknowledging its flaws. Maybe this place is for those caught up in those flaws that are swept under the rug, real stories hidden by the public eye to maintain the ideology.
Regardless, Liam let a faint glimmer of hope spark inside him. A place for people like him, to find a girl who went through something like him, and maybe restart his life, finally move on from the impact his soulmate's cheating left on him. Yes, that was what Liam needed.
He filled the "About Yourself" spaces with ease, choosing his best recent photo and typing out his interests, values, and what he was looking for. Before clicking the save button, Liam carefully checked the box "show giant suitors only", to be sure he would never go through what he went through again.
And he was set.
Liam spent the rest of the night browsing through the dating app.
..........................................
Things have been going well with this girl.
Rebecca was her name. 22 years old, same age as him. She worked as a freelance crochet artist, graduated in a college not too far from his hometown. When Liam saw her photo, his heart skipped a beat. Light brown eyes shone like gold under the sun, her long brunette hair flowing to the side as she gave the camera a captivating smile, pale face dotted by freckles. She looked absolutely gorgeous.
He liked her profile and she liked him back. A match. Liam initiated the conversation first, commenting on how they used to live near each other and ending his message with a cheesy one liner. He really needed to improve his flirting skills, he's clearly been out of practice. Surprisingly, to him, she laughed, and their conversation hit off.
They talked about everything: their hobbies, home life, school life, all they believed in and hoped for. They talked for hours until Liam's eyes dried at late night and he forced himself to go to sleep. He'd think more and more about Rebecca as days passed, and if her messages were anything to go by, then she seemed to feel the same. Liam was soaring for the first time in a while, relishing in the thrill of butterflies in his stomach and the warmth of connecting so easily and quickly with one person. All of that without his soulmate.
Things were looking up.
..........................................
LIAM: So how's the last crochet going?
BECS: Ugh don't even mention it. Spent the last two nights trying to make this impossible pattern the client was asking for
BECS: I'm exhausted 😭
LIAM: Wonder what pattern that could be?
BECS: oh you won't believe it. They made me crochet the entire lord of the rings logo. I don't think I can ever watch the movies now
LIAM: No way you gotta be kidding me
LIAM: You promised we would watch it together :(
BECS: Sorry Li, guess you're on your own. I've sadly contracted lotr trauma
LIAM: if I send you the books will they cure you?
BECS: NO
LIAM: YES
BECS: You're impossible
LIAM: impossible is you never watching at least one lotr movie lol
BECS: Alright alright if it's you I might give it a try
LIAM: I better make my complete lore presentation powerpoint ready then ;)
BECS: Ughhhh
Liam rolled over on his bed and stared dreamily at the ceiling. This girl. He might be saying it too soon, but he's in love with her. It's been only a few days since he met Rebecca, but they kept talking everyday, all day long. Conversation flowed so easily he felt like he knew her for years. If Liam hadn't met his soulmate before, he's sure he'd think Rebecca was the one. They kept talking like this for a while, in between jokes and questions about stuff they did or things they liked, until a message from Rebecca caught Liam off-guard.
BECS: Hey, I don't know if it's too early to ask this. If you don't want you don't need to share.
LIAM: what could be so serious for you to get so afraid now lol don't worry Becs, I'd never be uncomfortable with anything you say
BECS: Not even if I say I don't like the lotr trilogy?
LIAM: Now that's pushing it
BECS: LOL
A pause on the screen, the typing icon endless. Liam had an inkling of what it was about. The subject had to come up sooner or later.
BECS: Why did your soulmate leave you?
Ah, yes. Liam had completely forgotten about that, Becs made him at ease like this.
BECS: Sorry, I knew this was too soon
LIAM: I walked in on her in bed with another man.
The screen was silent.
BECS: No way. What??
LIAM: Yep. Messed with me pretty badly.
BECS: I'm so sorry, Liam.
LIAM: It's ok, doesn't matter anymore. We have each other now, right? ;)
BECS: yeah, you're right ❤️
LIAM: Hbu, why did your soulmate left?
A pause stretched on the bright screen. Liam gulped. Did he push it by asking her back? What douchebag would ditch this girl, anyway?
BECS: Before we kissed, everything was perfect. I didn't expect him to just, change. But then, it was like I was his object.
Liam froze, the text wobbling in the dark. "Object"? He didn't fully understand what that entailed, but if Rebecca has kept it so vague, then it meant she wasn't ready to share the full details of it, right? He exhaled a shaky breath.
LIAM: I'm so sorry, what an asshole.
BECS: it's okay. It's been a while, and I'm over it.
A long moment stretched before them when a thought consolidated in Liam's mind.
LIAM: Hey Becs, I've been thinking. Do you want to meet in person?
The message was marked as read, but she didn't say anything. Crap, maybe he was too forward?
Before he typed an apology, she answered him.
BECS: I was thinking the exact same thing! I'd love to
Liam's heart soared and he smiled warmly at the screen, blush covering his cheeks. 'Thank goodness'.
LIAM: Then are you free this weekend?
BECS: yep!
After Liam suggested a place and they decided the meeting spot, he turned his phone off and stared at the ceiling in a daze.
His life might've been ruined by soulmates, but he's about to get it back.
Sorry for the looong wait! Guess writing a story at the end of the year wasn't a good idea lmao
But it's here! It's done! Although this will have an epilogue, so we're actually not fully done yet lol But the epilogue will take longer, I guess a week or two, and then this short story and characters will be done for good.
Thank you guys for y'all's support on my comeback <3 U are what motivate me to keep doing it even when I have a hard time with writing!
And oh boi, lemme tell y'all, this was HARD to write. I knew it'd be a challenge, that was the reason why I wrote Soulkissed in the first place. It was my first time writing extreme size difference, and I know there's still a lot to improve, but I had fun tackling this scale regardless.
The pod shook and crashed as Rebecca skidded from place to place. She braced herself in the corner, capsule rocking hard up and down, and squeezed her eyes shut.
Everything happened like a blur. One moment, she saw a round, black pool surrounded by waves of green. The next, a shadow engulfed the pod and she slammed hard into the ground.
Stomach dropped. She swayed. Then crashed into another corner.
Dark. Damp. A thumping surrounded her. “Badump. Badump.” A racing heartbeat the size of a mountain.
Rustling so loud her ears ached. She hovered her finger over the soundproof earphones and clicked the button. Not working. She ripped them off, supporting herself on the railing, and threw them to the side. Hard flinch. Heartbeat fast. Faster. Heavy sounds ripping through her ears.
Pulse spiking. Scrambling for her purse. Heaves, air not coming in. A loud gasp, a harsh thump that sent her flying. A sob died in her throat, too panicked to come out. She whimpered. Phone. Her phone. ‘Where the hell is it?!’
She clutched its screen. A large crack on the middle. Something in her died inside. She pressed the “on” button. It didn’t light up. The ground shook, the pod swayed, she flopped to the side in a scream. The phone slipped from her hands. She crawled, tears in her eyes, gripping the device as if it’d save her.
Pressed the button. Nothing. She pressed again. And again. Again. Grunts of frustration became whimpers of panic.
It’s broken. No police to call. No mum to warn.
She’s alone.
Rebecca sucked in air. The ground jolted like a violent tremor. She let herself hit the corner, plain flaring along her ribs. She clutched her torso and curled up. Tears spilled freely, dampening the hot, plastic surface. She screamed and wept until her words dissolved into useless pleas.
No one. Only heat seeping through plastic as a warm, fleshy surface closed around it. Sweat dripped from its crevices as it pulsed, drumming around her.
………………………………..
Her vision darkened. Breathing halted, a sense of suffocation. It returned with ragged gasps.
Then a sharp drop. Stomach went to her throat. Bright light blinded her. Stillness.
The pod no longer hot and damp. A freezing wind entered through its cracks.
Rebecca stood up on shaky legs, supporting herself with a hand on the wall. She looked around.
Outside the smashed pod, a strange surface on the ground. Brown in color, ridges slithering on it.
Rebecca stumbled towards the door, heavy breaths. Her shaking hands found the handle, twisted and turned from the impact. She pushed. Nothing. She slammed her body into it, grunting, and the door finally gave way.
She landed unevenly on the rough surface. A sickening smell of varnish filled up her nostrils and she gulped down the urge to throw up. Her heartbeat still drummed, alert, the feeling of safety all but over. The brown floor extended as far as she could see, beyond a greyish fog. She looked right. White met her.
She turned around.
Brown threads, no different from the crotchet she makes, thick as garden hoses. Strands of cotton stuck out, and she could see little holes between each stitch. It stretched up and sideways. Columns of yarn rose, slow and deliberate, before easing back again. She craned her neck up, straining it, looking for an end.
Yet the threads continued. Up and up. She fell on her back, lungs stuttering for air. The fabric laid over a mountainous surface, tracing along its curves, until it met something pale beige and ash brown above.
The sky blinded her. Fluorescent sun and low hanging clouds. A cliff-like face emerged from the mist.
Her breath caught, heartbeat skipping. Lakes of green and black. Vines of dusty brown. Smooth solid surface like a mountain breaking through cloud.
Rebecca covered her eyes with a choke. ‘What the hell was that?’ A breeze fluttering her hair caught her attention and then — Loud. Something thrumming inside her ears, beating on its drums. She winced, a whimper escaping her throat. Like thunder head from underground, it pressured around her.
The syllables arrived late. Like a storm holding its breath, rolling disturbance in the air. Her teeth clattered. Yet her brain caught on a few words.
“…eea…”
“…uh-fraid…”
“…no…hurt…”
“…me…ee-am…”
They did nothing but confuse her. It had said something to her. The cliff-face. As if careful. Why was it careful?
It repeated sounds with howling echoes, until she recognized a word.
“…Lee-am...”
“Liam.”
‘Liam.’
With a bout of courage, she took her arm from her eyes, looking back up.
It was Liam.
The thread, a shirt. The sky, a ceiling. The sun an apartment light. The rising mountain from fog, his face, eyes large as lakes peering straight through her as if she mattered.
It spoke to her.
Liam.
A sudden wave of nausea made her gag. Rebecca rolled over. Heart tearing through her chest. She heaved. Nausea overtaking, stomach contorting in pain. Black surrounded her vision. She inhaled. Air too thin. It refused to come in. Her gasps useless. The room turned cold, chilling into her bones. Her arms gave in to a tingling sensation, followed by numbness. She couldn’t move. Big. Wrong. Nowhere. Run where?
Couldn’t breathe. Heaves up and down. Hauling for air until it burned.
Senses came back slowly. A faint return of movement in her fingertips, tunnel vision retracting. She inhaled a large gulp of air – and exhaled, like she had practiced. In, and… Out… In… And… Out. The room returned to unpleasantly hot. She sat up, residual shaking hitting her nerves. Testing her fingers, she flexed, then unflexed. Caressed the rough texture of the floor – coarse, sinewy.
She refused to look behind her. She knew he was there. Watching. Warm air chilling through her back. His breathing, she came to notice.
A bright light from behind caught her attention. She turned around.
A gigantic vertical screen. It was as if an entire building lit up. Some words were written in white on the dark screen. Rebecca scrambled back, half in fear, half in curiosity.
She managed to read the message within.
“Rebecca, are you okay??
I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.
It’s… Me. Liam.
There was an accident. The cyclists, they would crush you. I brought you home, I panicked.
I’m so sorry. I called the police. They’ll arrive soon.
Please hang in there.”
She winced and massaged her neck in pain, having to crane it far up to read it in its entirety. The message processed in her mind in waves. Accident. Liam’s home. Police coming.
She decided to focus on what gave her relief. ‘Police is coming’.
That should be enough. She only had to wait, and it would end. Just a while longer, hanging around with a giant. Her giant date, she corrected in her mind. Surviving just long enough doing breathing exercises until cavalry arrived.
It wasn’t like last time. No. She wasn’t stuck. There was no cage. No shouting words.
Just the infinite space around her and a cliff-face that dared to move and have feelings. Dared to flirt and make her laugh, to make normal feel possible again.
Tears appeared in the corners of her eyes, throat closing. Rebecca sniffed, putting her knees near her chest, and shutting her eyes.
Ignore the low drumming above, a distant thumping she recognized as a heartbeat.
Survive long enough, until it ended.
………………………………..
Her breathing had slowed now. Or so he thought.
Not shaking as much. Not looking for a way out. Liam liked to think that meant something, maybe no more panic and fear, finally understanding that he would do her no harm.
He shook his head.
More like she spiraled into panic but held herself together.
After all, how could she see him as the guy she talked with during those weeks? The person that made her laugh and talk about movies, hobbies, fears with. Hopes. Even mark a date.
No, to see him that way was impossible. Not when he was bigger than she could possibly comprehend. Not when she was as small as his nail.
Liam leaned back slowly, conscious of how every tiny movement may seem like an earthquake, heart rocking against his ribs. No sudden movements, no loud sounds. He fixed his gaze on her, holding back his neck. ‘Don’t move too much. Don’t breathe too hard.’ As still as possible, like the mountains she was most definitely comparing him too. Calm, gentler than holding breath. Even that wouldn’t be enough.
He squinted, attempting to catch a glimpse of Rebecca’s expression. She was curled up. Not shaking as much. Not laying down in panic like before. He wanted nothing more than to hold her close back then, pick her minuscule body between his fingers, tell her he would never hurt her until her breathing evened.
But no matter what he said, she didn’t seem to hear, and he couldn’t catch any sound from her either.
Progress was impossible. Anytime he tried to call her, attempt communication, her phone would fall in voicemail. Maybe it broke when he jostled her around.
Because of him, now she was stuck in this predicament. The thought twisted in his ribs.
So he wrote that message on his phone, held it as far from her as he could, and that seemed to have worked. Maybe she managed to read it. Maybe she calmed down.
Maybe he got through her.
Rebecca still didn’t move.
God. If only he could speak to her. Tell her it’s okay, he wouldn’t hurt her. He’d never lay a finger on her.
But how could he do anything? His sigh would blow her over like a speck of dust. His finger could crush her to a smidge if he put more pressure than feather light.
Like he always knew, communication with shrunken was impossible. He might as well be part of the landscape from her point of view, nothing more than a moving mountain with unknown intentions. A familiar ache flared in his chest. If only he could hear her. At least that way, they would…
A thought lit up in his mind.
Liam rose up slowly, methodically, like tectonic plates easing into position. His movement did not go unnoticed. Rebecca flicked her head up, scrambling backwards. Liam winced. From her point of view, he’d look like a welling tsunami, about to come crashing down and then…He’d rather not think about it.
But he needed to stand up. If his idea worked, maybe Rebecca would finally be at ease. He scooted to the box at the corner of the living room, not taking his eyes off her. He couldn’t see her well from that distance, but she seemed to be doing the same, body turning to his direction. He crouched and fondled for the box, until his hands found what he was looking for. A pen and paper.
He got up carefully, slow like rising tide, and padded back to the chair, careful not to shake the ground. Liam breathed thinly. ‘No sudden movements, no loud noise.’ Anything to make her not scared.
Hopefully this would work.
Settling on the chair, Liam laid down the pen and paper on the table, as further from her as he could. She scurried away regardless, hands clutching her head. His efforts to not make noise all but fruitless. ‘Damn it.’
With a shaky sigh, Liam pulled up his phone, typing a message on his “Notes” app, and angled the screen towards Rebecca, hoping she’d read it like last time.
“Becs I have an idea
Your phone isn’t workin right?
I have pen and paper here. I’m gonna write “yes” or “no” on it, and then you can answer by standing on the words.
How about it?”
Silence, as expected. He glanced down at the red and brown dot on the table, and squinted hard. Her head was looking at the screen, but aside from that, he couldn’t make out much else. No facial expressions, no nod of agreement, he saw nothing. Unless he leaned in and engulfed her in shadow, bringing back the panic she was in not long ago. He wouldn’t do that.
An idea popped in his head. The magnifying glass his parents had given him. He was carrying it in his pants pocket when he had left earlier, just in case he needed to read a human sign before meeting his date. He searched for the object, and there it was. Relief washed over him. The thought of looking at Rebecca like a specimen in a lab made him grimace, but he had no other choice.
He put the lens on his eye.
His breath caught.
There she was.
Like the photo she had sent, not so long ago. Her brown hair now messy and frizzly, locks sticking out. Beautiful red dress crumpled, stained where tears had fallen. Two black trails streaked down her cheeks, smudged mascara. Her eyes were sunken, dark circles below them, exhausted gaze tracking giant letters from his building-sized phone.
Something ugly and heavy settled in his gut. He caused this.
Liam didn’t know what Rebecca had been through with her soulmate. But if she had shrunken –
“But then, it was like I was his object.”
An object. Familiar with being tossed around, powerless, unable to stop however was in control.
His hands went cold.
He had no choice back then.
But Rebecca didn’t know that.
She didn’t know she was being saved when he snatched her in that plastic container, covered by darkness, jostling her around like a toy in a box.
He did that to her.
Liam’s throat closed, tears blurring his vision. He lowered the magnifying glass and blinked hard, forcing them back.
Hell. They were never going to work.
Nothing had stood between them before. Not words. Not feelings.
Just scale. And that was enough.
But he couldn’t afford to fall apart. Not now.
Until police arrived, he would keep her safe. Keep her calm. Make himself smaller in every way that mattered, even when his shadow swallowed her whole.
Liam breathed in, letting his exhale wash over her like morning chill. He held the magnifying glass back up. Rebecca was looking straight at him, brows furrowed in worry. Her frame trembled as she hugged herself, eyes looking at him, flickering with something akin to hope.
Liam brought his phone down gently, settling it on his lap. A thin breath in, shaky breath out. He slowly dragged the paper back to him with a whoosh, eyes glancing towards Rebecca. She had scooted away, but not in a frantic manner. Not panicked, nor desperate. Maybe his intentions had finally come across.
Liam divided the small paper into two columns and wrote “yes” on one, “no” on the other. Not the best options for good conversation, but that would have to do for now. He slowly raised the sheet and angled it towards her, hoping she had read it, and settled it over the table. She pushed herself to her feet, no different than a rice grain tipping upright, and craned her neck to read what took him a glance.
Liam typed on his phone, lowering its brightness, and turned it slowly towards her. He watched her without blinking, afraid of missing a detail, each twitch a signal barely strong enough to register.
“I wrote “yes” on your left, “no” on your right. Can you see them?”
Liam’s gaze fixed on her, fighting the urge to pull out his magnifying glass. Her head shifted just enough for him to catch her looking up.
And to his surprise, she walked towards a word. Liam’s heart skipped a beat.
Rebecca walked over the piece of paper, stopping on the middle of the word “yes.”
A lopsided smile broke across his face. ‘It worked.’ Hope flared stubbornly inside his chest. They could communicate. Barely, but present.
Hopefully Rebecca understood she wasn’t in danger.
Hopefully he wasn’t the source of her panic anymore.
Hopefully he was still her Liam. Just for this moment.
………………………………..
Rebecca might be in a fever dream.
She’d been carried against her will, brought somewhere unknown that turned out to be her date’s apartment, and there was him, scaled up to something unrecognizable. The fact she had calmed herself down – alone, afraid – and was talking to him through a hill-sized phone was nothing short of a glitch in reality.
Yet that smile was unmistakable. Lopsided, somehow, its usual confidence stripped away, replaced by a shyness unfamiliar to living mountains.
So was her date. And so was her predicament.
Her heartbeat slowed. Air came in easier. The shaking ebbed, replaced by the occasional chill when he exhaled, warm gusts fluttering her hair.
A low light snapped her from her thoughts.
She tilted her head back until her neck ached. There it was again, the building-sized phone. The light did not blind her this time. An intentional gesture? Something warm and fuzzy bloomed inside her, despite it all.
She read the giant letters.
“Are you hurt?”
Liam’s solution to their predicament was as simple as his bad jokes. Stand on your answer. An absurd idea. The corners of her mouth tugged up. She walked to her right, one step after the other, legs unsteady. She stopped on the “no” word, breathing hard despite no effort. The rough texture of paper sank underneath her. Hands twitched, suppressing the urge to trace on the fibrous surface.
She craned her neck up again. A long, thin line pulled at the edge of his mouth. His smile. From the corner was a dent, a dimple, not unlike the one from his profile picture.
Something coiled in her chest.
Another slow movement, air displacement meeting her face. She blinked the wind away. Liam typed on his phone again, and the light shone on her like fluorescent sun.
“Is the light alright?”
She stepped onto “yes.”
“Are you afraid right now?”
‘A little,’ Rebecca thought. Breathing was no longer a conscious effort, but she still couldn’t hold her gaze. Her feet shuffled, steps hesitating. Her heart rate spiked, legs moving before she could think. They settled on “no”.
A sudden movement caught the corner of her eye and her heart skyrocketed. She gasped, stumbling backward, and fell, back hitting hard against the floor. Rebecca groaned. Breathing turned uneven, coming in shallow gasps. Heart bursting through her chest.
Air crawled back in, body still trembling from head to toe. Her vision cleared.
His hand settled a little too hard on the table. Warm, fleshy surface towered over her like a pale hill, throbbing. Alive.
The sheer scale enough to make her dizzy.
Fluorescent light chilled her.
“I’m sorry I’m so sorry it was an accident I swear
Are you okay?”
Rebecca pushed down a whimper and dragged towards “yes,” sighing. She caressed the paper underneath, the texture enough to ground her in reality, pushing back the dark corners in her vision. Coarse. Freshly printed smell. It made her sick.
The phone lit up before her again.
“This is such a mess isn’t it?”
The cliff-sized phone trembled, giant hand not daring to move. But it twitched, contracted harder with a squish. Rebecca let out a wet laugh, blinking away her tears.
‘Yes. Yes, it was.’
She got up, and made her way towards the word.
Silence stretched over them. No one dared to move. How could they, when each twitch made her jump? Liam just wanted to help. Rebecca knew that now. Of course he wanted to help, that’s what normal people do. Not snatch her away and keep her locked in a cage.
He didn’t grab her without warning. Did not dare to raise his voice, as fruitless as his attempts to not sound loud were. He didn’t decide for her, ever since she arrived there.
Considerate. Careful. As if she had control.
A warm sigh washed over her, fluttering her dress and her hair. He remained still, as if even his breathing was a negotiation, and one she had the upper hand.
She shut her eyes.
He was the one.
If only they were same size.
She looked at that hand. Slight pulse underneath. Clenched shut. He thought he wasn’t trembling as much, for sure, but no small detail went unnoticed at her scale. It vibrated a little. Fear, nervousness, a mirror of her emotions.
She couldn’t see where his massive form ended, yet he was human all the same.
And once he was human-sized, just like her.
If they had met each other before their soulmate, would things have been different? Would they even miss their “true love”?
No, Rebecca didn’t think so.
None of her rambling mattered.
She let a tear fall down. Silently. Mourning, looking at the hand that could house her with room to spare. As if it could hold her, tell her it didn’t matter that he existed in a scale she couldn’t cross. It didn’t matter if she was a spec of dust. Love could conquer all.
A half smile ghosted on her face. Still an idiot romantic, despite herself.
She got up, and walked slowly towards the flesh that settled on the brown, ridge-filled surface. A wooden table, she came to notice. As she approached, the temperature shifted, cold turning into radiating warmth, a fresh smell of clean soap exhaling from his skin. The more she got closer, the more it towered, sweat beading on her forehead as temperature rose. Pores turned clearer. Veins flowed as rivers, a dull green, so thick she could dip her toes into. Muscle contracted when she got closer, as if pulling away, but ultimately deciding to stay still.
Rebecca’s skin prickled, heart kicking once. Each step faltered with a tremor, wavering. She embraced the quickening heartbeat, the shallow breaths, the surge of tension that came with a drop of her stomach. Liam’s presence evoked that, whether he was careful or not. Rebecca exhaled shakily.
She went further.
His fingertips came into view, each swirl a path she could walk on like a labyrinth. She reached out until she felt steam rising from skin. Could Liam see it, sweat evaporating in real time? No, he probably couldn’t. Only her, through her scale, could marvel at every tiny detail.
And marvel would she do.
Rebecca touched the surface. It twitched, as if electrocuted. The skin gave in like a plush beanbag, but the texture was not as soft as she had imagined. There was a coarseness to it, and small ridges across its surface. If she wanted, she could climb on it, and rest on the finger pad like a leathery mattress.
A dull, rhythmic drumbeat echoed across the room. It was faint, distant, but ever present. It took too long for her to realize it was Liam's heartbeat. The air shifted with every shudder of his, gusts of wind flicking past.
For a moment she just stood there, let the touch sink in, testing how much it gave.
Then it moved.
She tore her hand away, knees buckling, but stood still. A wince crossed her face, but Rebecca did not close her eyes, blinking tears away.
The hand unfolded like the doors of a cathedral. It unraveled and turned, opening its palm like a field of pink and beige before her. She traced the lines of his digits with her eyes. They undulated like rolling hills.
It settled again with a dull, quaking thud. Her balance faltered, but she did not fall. Air shifted, hair fluttered, dust bunnies billowing around her. She coughed. Despite that, the motion was soft. Softer than last time. Gentler for her.
Rebecca approached the pad of his finger again.
Warmth radiated like a hug they could not have. She pressed the skin tightly under her insignificant grip, hoping it’d make a print memorable enough for him to remember. She was there, just like him. Alive.
Small, but real all the same.
The gesture snapped the moment into focus. Made it real. A reality she inserted herself into, emotions interlacing with his. And maybe, outrageously, they shared a connection. Maybe, this time, her imagination didn’t make her a fool.
When Rebecca looked up, she saw those pools of green and black, swimming above her, clinking softly up in the misty distance. A gaze she managed to capture. A certainty that he felt the same.
A harsh bang cut through the room.
Sound became pressure. It blasted through her skull. Vision swam. The world tilted. Rebecca screamed, clasping her ears as her balance slipped out from under her. Something tore inside her head.
The hand retracted with a whoosh. The motion sent her flying across the table. She rolled, breath punched out of her lungs, and struck the surface with a raw grunt. She groaned and twisted, arms clamping around her ribs.
A cacophony thundered above her. Her eyes closed. Ears rang, shrill and piercing. She caught fragments of speech, a distorted mess of echoing voices and booming roars.
Heavy footsteps followed. Booming, but small thuds compared to Liam’s. They shook the table beneath her. Rebecca looked up, blinking in disbelief as a shape resolved out of the chaos. A silhouette she could finally process.
A human-sized police officer.
In her hand stood another figure, a shrunken officer. The hand lowered, and the small agent hopped down onto the table.
“Officer Alston, police department. Rebecca Vale, I’m sorry for the wait.”
She got near Rebecca carefully, as if approaching a fawn.
“We’re going to rescue you safely and without harm. You won’t have to be in contact with humans or giants.”
Rebecca was raised by a firm yet gentle grip. She wanted to protest, to squirm free of her grasp. She wasn’t glass, she was — It was fine, it had been fine. He was careful.
He wasn’t dangerous.
The words died in her throat instead, jaw locking as she obediently followed the officer, head hung low.
They stepped towards what looked like a drone, coupled with a compartment for the shrunken, police sirens perched on top. The human police officer stepped away with booming steps, clearing the way for Rebecca to enter. The drone buzzed with a whirr of machinery.
That was it. Rescue. A reassuring word. Or so she thought.
Dread filled her chest instead, a sinking sensation, hollow and rooted.
No more panic. No more being lost and overwhelmed. No more looking at the gentleness behind those lake-sized eyes. No more brushing warm fingertips bigger than her whole body.
No more Liam. Ever.
Rebecca turned towards the thunder overhead, knowing it was him before she could see it. Color bled into her vision, the familiar brown of his shirt. In the distance he blurred into the background, fading into grey mist. Liam stood motionless near the giant officer.
She wanted to say something. ‘Thank you. I’m sorry. We’ll meet again...’
‘…Will we?’
No. That wouldn’t happen. Reality settled in her chest, heavy and final.
A nudge from the shrunken officer snapped from her thoughts, guiding Rebecca towards the drone’s platform. She stepped inside and sat down on the bench, arms wrapping around herself as the female agent settled across from her.
The drone buzzed as the pod rocked and lifted from the ground. Light shone through the cabin window and her head turned before she could think.
Outside, the room opened into a picture she hadn’t been able to see before. The table she had nearly disappeared on looked so small from that perspective. The room was barren, a hotplate in the far corner, a cardboard box in the other, and a single chair.
And standing there was him. Liam, at eye level. Whole. Undistorted. A picture she could finally read.
Beneath a haze that warped distance and scale, he stood still before the officer. Hands on his head, posture stiff, looking down.
The saddest expression she had ever seen, etched across his face. A hard frown. Downturned eyes. The look of guilt he did not deserve.
How far from the truth it was.
An urge to leap the distance and hug him surged through her. To shout. To thank him. To tell the police he’d done nothing wrong.
She stayed silent instead.
Yet in that distance, for a second, they locked eyes. And for the first time, they saw each other on equal footing. No paper, no phone, no glass lens or twisted scale. Only distance, his expression fully readable, not broken into parts.
Just two shattered looks, as the drone drifted away.
This chapter was way easier to edit. I guess because there wasn't much to change, I was happy with what I wanted to happen. The problem is if my writing is good enough lol that's why, feedback appreciated! My anon asks are always open.
Anyway, the date chapter! Where everything goes as planned and nothing goes wrong haha
Yeah. These jitters were just because of the cold. That’s what he told himself, even though giants were more resistant to it.
With trembling hands, he put on his yellow and black flannel shirt and a white T-shirt underneath. He looked at the square mirror on the bathroom, and grimaced. Gosh, that looked awful. He took off both and decided on a simple brown turtleneck instead.
Putting on his black jeans and white sneakers, he took a deep breath, and set off.
The meeting point was about twenty minutes away from home. A short walk, although Rebecca had said the location was a bit far to her. Liam frowned. Had he chosen a bad spot? Although giants got around quickly due to their size, she did say she lived isolated. Liam exhaled a shaky breath. He had taken some hours searching through good meeting spots, and decided that a street corner, close to the national human park, would be it. A broad view filled with avenue crossings for humans, giants and shrunken alike. He’d figured that a crowded place with good visibility would be the way to go.
Liam closed the door to his studio and strolled through the city, making sure to avoid looking at the miniature-sized human streets he used to walk by.
His stomach fluttered. That was it, he was gonna meet the person who made his days better ever since the break-up. He couldn’t lie to himself now, he was excited. Terribly so.
They would meet, and then find a nice restaurant to chat, connect, and maybe, just maybe, kiss, no longer bound to the consequences and expectations of soulmates.
It was freeing. He was free, and he would make sure Rebecca would feel the same way.
He had found what he’d been missing, after all.
..........................................
Leaving her house after two months wasn't as easy as she first thought.
Rebecca clutched her handmade scarf and huffed a foggy breath. It's freezing. The type of cold she can feel inside her bones. It was only 37ºF outside but ever since she shrank, temperatures have been hard to deal with, both hot and cold. Hot was too hot. Cold was too cold.
She wondered if Liam was feeling cold, too.
As Rebecca waited in line for the train to arrive – an absolute godsend, honestly; without them, crossing the street would take days – she pulled up her tablet-sized phone and hovered a finger over the dating app, but a red notification on the "Messages" app caught her attention.
She clicked it, and her eyes widened to see it was from Soulkissed itself.
"Dear users,
We regret to inform our platform suffered from a notable glitch, in which the select boxes for "show shrunken partners only" and "show giant partners only" were not working properly. Because of this, many who may have chosen these boxes could have gotten suitors who do not match their preferences.
We deeply apologize and are working on this issue.
Sincerely, Soulkissed team."
Rebecca's heartbeat rose. What did that mean? Could it be some of the guys she talked with were giants?
Was Liam a giant?
No, she couldn't think about that now. The train had just arrived. She got in, mechanical movements towards her chair, ignoring her blurry vision. She's going to their meeting spot, and everything will turn out fine. She's going to their nice little date where she'd hopefully find her tiny-sized Liam and not some, not some —
The train passed through an open area and the massive city outside rose in all its glory.
Flat and wide streets swarmed by towering humans, some with tiny partners perched on their shoulder, loud voices crashing against the train, footsteps booming on the concrete, a chain of tremors in thundering rhythm. The onslaught of noise pounded in her ears before she had the chance to put her sound-blocking earphones on. She scrambled for them in her bag, hands shaking. Flashbacks came in tandem with the quaking footsteps, his looming shadow, his ear-splitting screams, the ringing they left –
The sound-blocking feature turned on. Silence. Just the comfortable hum of the train engine and distant earthquakes beneath her feet. Her heart drummed as she forced herself to breathe. In, and out. In.... And, Out...
It's alright. She's going to her first date in centuries. She's going to be fine.
She'll be happy soon.
A “ping” sound from her phone snapped her attention to the screen, clicking on the Soulkissed app. Her eyes brightened up. It's a notification from Liam.
LIAM: Just left my house. Gonna be there soon
BECS: ok!
LIAM: Sorry if the spot is too far away from you, it's actually super close to my home.
BECS: I'm surprised you live near there, tbh
LIAM: Why?
BECS: I mean, too many giants and all, I'd be super scared 😅
LIAM: LOL that's a great joke Becs
A shot through her heart. Stomach sinking. Rebecca's palms damped, and she wiped them with her pant leggings.
Something is seriously wrong.
No, snap out of it. Liam's not a giant. Liam's not a giant.
Giants aren't even interactable to begin with. They're so big their faces faded in blue. Their steps so loud and monolithic that she'd prefer to pretend they were a distant earthquake than an actual living, breathing person.
To her right, on the window, Rebecca saw them outside of the human pavement. The city was designed so that shrunken accommodations, like the train she was in, sat on top of raised platforms, shoulder-length with the humans. Shrunken were never seen on the floor. Humans themselves stood on a raised pavement of their own, shoulder-length with the giants.
Giants existed far out of her field of vision, in the distance, hidden behind massive human buildings. They were part of the landscape, like the mountains from her homeland, the color of the sky blending in with their silhouettes. Distant, untouchable.
Her phone ringed again with a “ping”.
A photo of Liam.
LIAM: here's what I look like so you can find me when you arrive. Hope I'm not too handsome ;)
Boy, he was handsome. He worse a slim-fitted brown turtleneck that left none of his athletic build to the imagination. His easygoing smiled highlighted the dimples on his face, golden hoop earring glowing in the sun. Rebecca's heart skipped a beat as a smile plastered on her face. Gosh, she can't believe she's meeting this guy.
She sheepishly raised her phone and took a photo of herself, pressing enter before she thought better.
BECS: here's mine too. Hope it's not too blurry!
LIAM: Wow, you look gorgeous
Rebecca tittered as she sent him a heart emoji. ‘Why was he like this?’
She looked up. Her stop was almost arriving. Anxiety settled at the bottom of her stomach.
That glitch notification still haunted her. She needed to know what Liam thought of it.
BECS: Hey, did you see that weird bug notif from the app?
LIAM: no, where did they send it?
He didn't know? ‘Oh no.’ She tapped her foot repeatedly.
BECS: Something about the suitor selector being broken
LIAM: Oh, just saw it. Yeah, kinda weird.
BECS: do you think –
'... We were affected?' she was about to type in those words before her stop arrived and the train skidded to a halt. She lurched forward and misclicked the “enter” button. Damn it. She'll have to finish that message later.
As Rebecca left the safe interior of the train, icy cold air bit at her skin. She tightened her scarf and hurried down the street, towards the platform’s edge and to the capsule for shrunken, where she could meet Liam safely.
Her stomach sank. The human platform ended where the shrunken one did, giving way to the open area meant for giants. The ground warned her before they appeared, a deep, heavy thud rolling through the streets and humming inside her body. Human-sized streets crossed before her in an onslaught of noise, honks rattling through her bones. She turned up the sound-blocking settings on her ear muffs, flinching hard.
Why did she agree to meet here?
Rebecca teared her eyes away and pulled up her phone, praying for any new messages. Her breath hitched and sped up, each inhale a struggle through shrinking lungs. She closed her eyes. Calm. She had to be calm. Liam should be close, so she couldn’t freak out.
Her eyes glanced back at her phone.
They landed on Liam’s photo, the one he had sent earlier. Something about it caught her eye. She inched closer, eyebrows creased.
The photo had no transparent background. Shrunken booths were see-through, made of resistant plastic. No matter where you were, people would know you were in one from a single photo.
But Liam's photo had nothing like that…
Rebecca took off towards the capsule, hustling down the street, heartbeat battering against her ribs. She was almost running now, long strides towards it, anything to catch a glimpse of his familiar face. Please be in there. Please don’t be a product of the app bug.
Please heaven, let him be a shrunken.
Liam would be there, inside, waiting for her — He was not wearing a scarf, how is he not freezing — That proves nothing, Liam might like the cold. She clutched her bag and turned on her phone again, checking the photo as if it’d vanish –
No capsule background. Just the open sky, and the bright sun overhead.
No. Maybe it's the blurriness of the photo. Maybe he took it before entering the booth. Maybe –
Her phone pinged. Liam’s message. The pod’s door closed as Rebecca went inside.
Empty.
Her eyes flicked to the message, and she fell on her knees.
LIAM: Hey, just to confirm, you ARE a giant, right?
..........................................
Rebecca was taking a little too long.
That was weird. She had sent a message that she left her house and more than half an hour had passed since. In this city, no place takes a giant more than twenty minutes, unless you lived out of town. Did Rebecca really live that far away?
But then she mentioned that app glitch notification, and he’d read it through, and ever since then, something was not quite right.
The conversation they had a few days ago kept coming back to his head. "Treating me like an object"... How would a giant even be treated like an object?
So he sent that message before meeting her, just in case. Just to confirm. It wasn’t that he thought Rebecca wasn't giant, that'd be ridiculous. They couldn't be that unlucky, could they?
He just wanted to be sure.
But when she took a while to answer, that's when Liam got restless.
He paced around on the spot they agreed to meet, stealing a furtive glance at the human cars down on the platform. He usually avoided looking at the human settlements. A sense of dread sank uneasily in him. Everything appeared small, fragile, distant. Like he was in a miniature museum, except everyone in it was alive. He hated how out of place that made him feel.
The worst part were those tiny, fingertip-sized compartments for shrunken people on the edges of the human platform. Why were they on the edge? If he bumped into the human platform accidentally, he'd kill whoever was inside the shrunken capsules. Liam’s stomach churned. From where he stood, he was dangerously close to one of those. Looked like there was a shrunken in there too, but he could barely see them besides a colorful speck. He teared his eyes away.
Rebecca hadn't answered yet. Liam furrowed his brow. Now he was starting to get a little worried. It had been a good five minutes before her weird cut-off message. What was she trying to type? And why had it been cut off?
He paced back and forth until deciding to click on the Soulkissed app. She was online. Maybe if he called her, she wouldn't mind? She said she was on her way, after all, he's just worried something bad happened.
A video call wouldn’t hurt.
He pressed the button.
It ringed a few times, but thankfully, she answered.
Yet his smile faltered and whatever he had to say died in his throat when he saw her face. She was breathing heavily, eyes wide like saucers, one hand over her mouth, her head flicking between the screen and whatever was above her. Liam's expression turned into a concerned frown.
"Are you okay? What happened? Where are you?"
She did not answer. He was about to repeat himself, more worried this time, when she opened her mouth. Closed it. Swallowed. Heaved again. Opened it.
"Becs, where are you? If you're in danger, I can-"
"Y-you're a giant..."
Her voice no louder than a whisper, so hoarse he almost didn't hear it. A sinking feeling creeped deep in his gut. No. No. It can't be what he's thinking.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm a shrunken, and you're a giant..." - her voice wavered on the edge of tears, throat hoarse. Liam's chest tightened, pulse spiking.
She kept glancing upwards inside a glass-looking interior. “Shrunken”. What did she mean by that? She – no. His new date couldn't possibly be four inches tall. The app glitch shouldn't have affected them. They couldn't be that unlucky.
No. Nonono. That had to be a prank.
He pressed a hand to his forehead and looked around.
"Is this a joke? Becs this isn't funny."
But she shook her head vicariously no. Her eyes kept flicking between whatever was above her and the screen.
Wait. No. Was he above her? Was she looking at him?
Liam's heart sank. He clenched his teeth, pausing before searching below him, on the human platform, until his eyes caught sight of the miniature booth. The only one close enough to him.
He spotted a tiny speck inside, that could easily be mistaken by a speck of dust.
Liam held down his phone. The capsule was no taller than two thirds of his finger, small enough to hold in a hand with room to spare. His eyes were wide as he took tentative steps towards it. That couldn't be Becs. It was just, someone else. He took another step, too conscious of how much it shook the floor beneath him, until he got as close to the platform as he could.
The silhouette was barely visible, but the colors matched. Red floral dress. A scarf. The same outfit of that beautiful photo she had sent.
He leaned in, heart hammering through his chest, eyes narrowing. He barely could make the person out. He barely made her out.
A shrunken woman crumpled on the floor. Brown, long hair, red scarf. Floral dress. Wide eyes looking at him, a large device in her hand.
Liam's face flashed, then fell. Betrayal, guilt, then a sadness that lingered. That was Rebecca. It matched the description, but he wanted to believe he was hallucinating. He blinked. He rubbed his eyes with his hands, took a few shallow breaths. But she was there. Small as a speck. Looking up at him with terrified eyes.
And Liam never felt so freakishly huge than at that moment, in front of his date.
Before he could attempt to say something, anything – a loud noise came from his right. A group of giant cyclists crashing onto each other and skidding towards the shrunken pod Rebecca was in. A simple accident, a fatality waiting to happen.
He didn't think twice. Liam reached his hand and tore the booth from its base pole, a sick crunch of metal ripping through the air. He left the spot just in time –cyclists swerved too late, slamming into the human platforms with a boom. The impact left deep indentations where the pod had stood, everything near it crushed like a tin can.
Liam turned around and hurried away, heart on his throat. He cradled the capsule against his pounding heart, shielding it from the jolt of his thunderous steps.
Rebecca is in there. He ripped her out without asking. Just grabbed and ran. The thought cut through him, sharp and delayed. Panic crowded out the streets, every giant a potential threat. There was nowhere safe to leave her. His steps faltered for half a breath. Then he turned.
Home.
It was the closest. The safest. The only one he could think of.
Liam lifted the pod with a shaking hand and glanced inside. Rebecca laid crumpled, disheveled, tiny chest rising and falling in quick, shallow breaths. Awake. Alive.
His breath left him in a rush.
He could kill her. One wrong squeeze, and she’d be dead. The thought alone made his fingers curl inward, holding the capsule closer to his chest.
Liam increased his pace, each step measured. They'd be okay in his house. There were no giants to bump into him and crush her. No threats.
Man I'm so tiredddd I had this chapter mostly ready for months, but when I was giving it the last edit I felt like changing so many things. I'm slightly late, but oh well. I hope you guys enjoy it!
She’d been showered with love since childhood, so suspicion had no place in her world. Sure, the world out there was dangerous, but her world wasn't. She maintained a balanced sense of danger, and that's enough.
Or so she thought.
Rebecca never involved herself with bad companies. Having a solid group of friends since kindergarten, she never had to deal with bullies, either. Maybe jealously and rudeness, sometimes, but throughout her childhood and teenage years she never felt betrayal.
Until she met Rodrick.
Soulmates. Rebecca always daydreamed about hers. What would he look like? What would he sound like? She made thousands of romantic, colorful scenarios in her head under the sound of a nice indie band in her earphones. But no imagination compared to the real deal.
Rodrick was the man of her dreams. He was tall, had sharp, piercing brown eyes and black, slicked back hair. His voice was deep yet reassuring, his posture composed and elegant. They met by coincidence one day when Rebecca stayed at a hotel, and she immediately felt the spark. Not only because Rodrick was drop dead gorgeous, but because his presence had such a magnetic pull to it that she couldn't look away.
And he thought the same about her.
Sharing their numbers and starting conversation was as smooth as butter. He'd constantly sprinkle compliments in between their casual chats, and butterflies filled her stomach. Their first date went without a hitch, and she couldn't take her eyes off him every step of the way.
So it came to no surprise to Rebecca when Rodrick spoke about kissing one day.
His words were sweet back then. Gentle, saying how he'd go about taking care of her no matter what happened to them, and that he trusted her with the same.
Rebecca trusted Rodrick. He was her soulmate, after all. What did she have to doubt? Being with him felt right, like all soulmates do. Spending time with him was a match of bliss and whimsy. What was there for her to doubt?
Why did she even had to doubt him?
On their kissing day, they were inside his house. He looked at her like his world were her eyes. Whether one grew or the other shrank, why did that matter? Wasn’t it even exciting? Dealing with such a size difference, such a change of dynamics must bring some sort of adventure, at least. Her heart raced with the sense of the unknown.
When he leaned in for the kiss she didn't push him away. There was no need to. He was her soulmate. She had found him. Their connection surpassed the limits of boring, complicated non-soulmate relationships.
The kiss spread through her like morning light. Her breath hitched when he leaned in for more. A push and pull tugged at her uncomfortably, but the tenderness of the kiss kept her distracted. As long as she had Rodrick in her arms, she was not afraid.
So Rebecca didn't panic when she felt herself shrink and the world amplified around her. A hit of nerves threatened to rise, but Rodrick’s gentle gaze as she turned smaller calmed her down. Even as her shrinking hand slipped from his grasp, even as her vision darkened beneath the fabric of her sweater and the distance between them grew, his gaze anchored her in their decision. He was her soulmate, after all. They were meant to be.
And yet, Rodrick’s widening smile, his eyes glinting with child-like excitement… Something about them, they looked like... She wasn’t sure if she shared the feeling.
The room grew around her, ceiling stretching so high she had to crane her neck. The yarn turned warm and suffocating as soft fabric weighted her down. Her soulmate’s face loomed up above, that same glint shining on his eyes, transfixed on her. Her heart twisted. Maybe this was just too much. Maybe –
"Oh my gosh!" – a sudden burst of energy compressed inside her, and she fell into the pile of her own clothes.
She shrank. More violently than she imagined.
Would Rodrick find her cuter now? Would she feel his presence everywhere, be carried in his hand? The idea didn’t seem so bad. Being pampered and cared for, like a warm blanket against the autumn chill. Yes, that didn’t seem so bad. She shouldn’t feel uneasy. It was for her own good that she was the one to have her size changed.
From above her, where a sliver of light spilled through the collar of her sweater, a hand came into view. Rodrick! The approaching, massive appendage sent shivers down her spine, but Rebecca shook them off. It’s okay. It was just her soulmate, bigger than ever from her point of view.
His hand circled her body, feeling her shape, and squeezed, a little too tight. Rebecca yelped. He'll need to get used to treating her gently. Her stomach plummeted as he lifted her into the open. The air felt colder than usual, ceiling lights blinding from all directions as her eyes fluttered. She was about to smile at him when his face caught her off guard.
There was something off about it. A crooked tilt to his smile that was never there before. A hunger in his eyes she hadn't seen yet.
"Finally."
The new, reverberating tone caught her off guard. It shook inside her bones, tingled in her ears. She wasn’t sure whether the shivers came from the echo of his voice or from her bare skin meeting the cold. The way he said that word raised the hairs on her arms. What did he mean by that? Was Rodrick excited about the kiss? Surely, everyone would be... But she was the one who had changed, not him.
He whispered, his warm breath washing over her.
"I'll take care of you."
Goosebumps covered her skin. His whisper was deeper, voice low and husky. Rebecca never heard him talk like this. Her smile faltered, a frown covering her face. A massive finger scratched her head as she ducked in recoil.
"Rodrick, what –"
Before Rebecca could answer, he lifted her abruptly, her heart sinking. He walked silently towards the attic, a place that Rebecca hasn't visited before, footsteps thundering over the wooden floor. Everything was so loud now, roaring in her head. Her ears hurt from the noise. His grip on her remained tight.
"R-Rodrick?"
Her soulmate lifted her towards his face, expression oddly calm. Cold. Why was he acting so distant? Her heartbeat picked up pace, face dropping. ‘What's going on?’
“You don't need to be afraid.” – he smiled down at her.
Shivers traveled up her spine but she didnt shake them off this time, ears ringing from the deep, low voice that resonated around her. He never used that tone before. Her stomach churned, heartbeat spiking as the truth cut through her, sharp and undeniable.
Rebecca did not know her soulmate.
..........................................
The next week passed like a blur.
At first, she denied it all. 'No, Rodrick is just taking care of me.' Putting her in bright, puffy clothes, itchy Velcro on her back. That was just doting, wasn't it? Trapping her inside a dollhouse, the stifling smell of plastic and rubber in the air, and not letting her leave unless he wanted to. ‘That was just overprotection', she reasoned.
"I'm taking care of you", he said. "You won't have to worry about anything anymore. I'll protect you". So she forced herself to calm down, one deep breath at a time. After all, he was her soulmate.
But when Rebecca asked if she could leave, he wouldn't let her, whispering gentle words about going outside being too dangerous for her now. She'd try to reach her phone to get in contact with her family, but Rodrick would hold it away from her, arguing that she's too small to type in the keys.
Rebecca's denial didn't last long. It took a few days of his empty platitudes for her to crack and demand what's going on, demand to go back to her home, to her job, to her life and her family.
And that's when his facade crumbled.
That's when her life turned into hell.
..........................................
Rodrick wasn't leaving Rebecca inside her house anymore. "Too dangerous. You'll escape", he said matter of factly. She was made to sleep in a stuffy glass cage with cold hard floors. Sometimes, the air didn't want to get in her lungs and she would suffocate in her own gasps and heaves, banging on the thick walls in hopes of Rodrick doing something, anything to help her.
Until his head snapped at her and red rushed to his face.
He sprang from his chair, sending it crashing with a thunderous bang, and snatched Rebecca from the cage. He shook her again and again until the world blurred and she swore her head would tear free. He shouted for her to shut up or she would face the consequences, then dropped her back onto the glass floor, crumpled and shaking, ears ringing long after he was gone.
Ever since then, Rebecca didn't dare ask her soulmate anything.
The last days before police came blurred together into dissociation and routine. Wake up. Eat whatever he gave her. Sit on the corner of the glass cage, drifting between sleep and awareness, wondering when the day would end. When he came from work, she stayed rigid, every twitch of movement snapping her awake.
Her soulmate wouldn't do much. Sometimes he'd pick her up and press her against his cheek, whispering in her ear until she felt like throwing up. But most of the time, she was alone, on that glass floor, so cold she couldn't stop shivering, walls seeming to inch closer. The heaving gasps and racing heartbeat dulled into numbness, and when she wasn't watching her body move on its own from somewhere far away, she was daydreaming about soulmates.
How ironic.
The week moved slower than time ever had. A week of the same mind-numbing routine, the same repugnant "cuddling" that made her throat tighten, the same sobs creeping up whenever she thought of her mom and her sisters. She clawed uselessly at the slippery glass until her nails bled. When the air grew stifling, she drowned in her own breath, gasping and heaving on the cold floor. Alone.
Rebecca learned to deal with that on her own. Quietly. She made herself small, invisible, silent enough that Rodrick might forget she was there. Even then, he would snatch her up from time to time, gripping her tightly, purple bruises blooming along her ribs. A pattern she learned to expect.
When Rebecca cemented in her mind that she would rot in there, that's when police arrived.
She did not react when Rodrick's door was broken. She barely spared a glance at his desperate struggles as he was handcuffed and dragged away.
He looked back at her.
That piercing, hungry gaze locked onto her small and crumpled form trapped in that glass cage. That glare caught her attention.
She met his stare without flinching. What she had buried, anger, fear and pain, rose to the surface and reflected straight back at him. Rodrick's reaction was enough. A flicker of something crossed his face, and it gave her a brief, ugly satisfaction. For now, that was enough.
She held his gaze and wished him dead, with a calm she did not recognize.
..........................................
The police procedure was another blur of check-ups, interviews and questionnaires. For Rodrick's trial, Rebecca stood on a miniature stand made for shrunken people like her. She gritted her teeth. Rebecca's current size was living proof of what her "soulmate" did to her. She couldn't grow back, couldn't reverse the scars or the size he permanently stuck her in.
And still, she was made to relive those weeks for the sake of “justice”. Weeks she buried under numbness and dissociation, dragged back into the open and laid bare before her. She prepared the testimony through shaking hands and broken sleep, amidst sobs and tangled up thoughts.
It had all come to that moment. The struggle of not getting her size back, in seeing her mother and sisters impossibly large and far away. The nights she cried just to put words on paper. This was supposed to be worth it.
She took a deep breath, and delivered the testimony she had prepared.
And so Rodrick was condemned. Forty plus years. Something about reinforced laws against shrunken people's oppression. The words washed over her. Her “soulmate” was taken away in handcuffs, on his way to stay behind bars for the rest of his life. Justice, as they called. It was a satisfactory end.
She should be satisfied.
But when Rebecca left that courthouse, there was no relief waiting for her. No triumph. No closure.
Only hollowness.
..........................................
Rebecca tossed and turned on her bed as she hit the snooze button on her custom-made alarm. She didn't want to work today. But she had to get up, otherwise her crochet work wouldn't be finished and she'd have to spend the entire night finishing it again and sleeping late again in order to not delay her client's product. She needed that money after all, bills weren't paid alone, and she had to have cash to spare for her therapy sessions and meds.
It's just been two years, after all.
With a groan, Rebecca rubbed her eyes and sat up on her bed, lazily gripping her custom-made phone. As a shrunken, the device was starkly different from her human phone. They were more rudimentary, made only for simple calls, basic internet searches, and messages. The casing was thick, and the size was equivalent to half a tablet if scaled up to human proportions.
Such was Rebecca's life now, and she had gotten used to it.
Sure, the last time she left her house was a month ago, but she concluded that was a pretty good progress compared to her previous three-month streak. All thanks to her amazing therapist, friends and family.
As Rebecca got up and ready for the day, she sighed.
Despite everything, she was lucky, wasn't she?
She should be happy. Happier than this.
She will be. Just a little more, just small progresses, small steps, one at a time. She would get there, closer and closer to feeling more at ease. She had to.
As she whipped up a quick breakfast, Rebecca's phone ringed loudly. Wincing, she searched for her ear muffs, with no luck. Why was a device made for shrunken so goddamn loud?
Rebecca put her freshly-made breakfast plate on the table before taking a glance at the caller.
Her mom.
Her heart cut in half. Rebecca hasn't seen her mom in months.
When she accepted the call, a tranquil voice sounded from the other side of the screen.
"And how's my big girl doing?"
Rebecca smiled, a tinge of sadness in her eyes. "Hey mum."
"Did you get a good night's sleep?"
"I'll be honest, I stayed up ‘til later trying to finish that piece."
Her mom sighed from the other end of the line. "Oh sweetie, you know having a bad night's sleep is bad for anxiety."
She took a sip of her coffee. "Yeah, I know. But I really need to finish this shirt on time. The pay's way too good, and I need the extra money. Plus the client asked for a bunch of tiny patterns."
"I know, I know. And with the extra money you'll be able to visit us this time, right?"
She froze. See her family again? It's been a while. Six months. Ever since the trial, being face to face with her family was so, so difficult.
They were all humans, her mom and her two sisters. To Rebecca, they looked gigantic. Every time she met their eyes, a sharp urge to disappear took over her.
This was her mom. These were her sisters. Yet something about the size difference felt wrong, like becoming aware of a loss she would never get back.
She couldn't hug them the way she used to. When they spoke to her, Rebecca craned her neck up until it hurt, their bodies looming above, casting her in shadow. She smiled through it, held herself together, until her knees buckled and her heart hammered inside her chest.
Around their house, she couldn't move without help. She felt dependent. Useless. Every visit ended up the same way, with tears burning behind her eyes, anticipating the moment she could finally leave.
In fact, tears were threatening to come out of her face at that very moment.
"I'll, I'll see about that, mom. But I'm not sure."
Silence on the other end. Rebecca sucked in a breath.
"Becca, are you avoiding us?"
"W-what? No! I'd never –"
"My dear, you don't need to hide anything. It's okay. You can talk to me about anything."
That last word slipped out like a quiet plea. Rebecca knew that she could, she really did, but no matter how much she tried, words wouldn't come out. What would she say, anyway? That she's scared of her own mom? Her throat clogged with a heavy knot. She gulped it down, forcing her voice to turn even.
"I know that, mom. I just, I think I just need some time."
"Did I do something, my dear? Did your sisters do something? Please, if I ever made a wrong move, just – "
"No! Y-you didn't anything, mom, I swear! It's okay, I..." – Rebecca gulped down her wavering voice. Don't cry. Don't cry. – "...I just need more time. Please."
She didn't need to hear her mom to know she was attempting to even her voice, just like her. They were too similar, after all. Inseparable.
At least, they used to.
"Just keep in mind something, dear. Nothing, nothing will make you less as my daughter, okay? Did you hear me?"
Rebecca's heart ached at her mother's words. Since her emotions would constantly try to betray her, reminders like this were just what she needed.
"Yeah, I know."
"I love you."
"Love you too."
When they hung up, Rebecca tried to eat her breakfast.
But the sobs wouldn't stop coming.
..........................................
After a few days, another great crochet shirt commission delivered with success, Rebecca woke up to decide she needed a date.
Yes, a date. A guy her size, who maybe went through the same things so they could share and heal together.
She didn't think further than that when she opened her other phone, human-sized phone this time, as big as a vertical TV to her, and she searched for dating websites, stretching her arms to reach the oversized key buttons.
It didn't take long for Rebecca to notice how hard it was to find any dating page. It was even harder to find a place for people who had already found their soulmate, but didn't end up with them. Rebecca sighed in between searches. Of course. "Soulmates" and all. Why even use a dating app, right?
Rebecca has soon grown to learn that the idea of soulmates was kind of ridiculous.
On the tenth or so page, she found a website that caught her attention. “Soulkissed”.
"A place for those duped by their soulmate?" - she questioned. The description sounded quite ironic. She never heard of soulmates not working together, besides her. Could this be her chance of finding like-minded people? Hope fired in her heart.
Rebecca browsed through the page, analyzing reviews and reading everything about it. It really was a dating app for kissed soulmates who didn't get together. How specific. She shifted on her feet, containing the hopeful jitters in her body. Lately she has been so lonely, the idea of contact with the world outside sent her mind into a spiraling panic, so Rebecca stayed home. Worked from home, got things delivered to her, got her products delivered to others.
She never had to leave her house. It was safe, cozy, comfortable. Her size. Wooden floors, yellow walls, plants adorning every nook and cranny. Big buttons decorated the walls, needles and giant rolls of thread stacked in a corner. Inside, she didn't need to face reality of the life that's been robbed from her. Never needed to face the fear of the world in a magnified scale.
But maybe, if she found someone her size... They could share that fear together.
Rebecca signed right away, making sure to select the box "show shrunken partners only", for good measure.
..........................................
Rebecca sighed as she prepared a late-night snack. There goes her goal of sleeping earlier. She spent the entire night liking profiles, ending and starting conversations, and yet no one has worked out yet. On the bright side though, at least there were many people on that app, she didn't know kissed soulmates who were single was that common. She sat on her table and took a spoonful of yogurt, the thick liquid resistant to the touch. She ate it as if it was gelatin, frowning. The difference of texture still felt weird at her size.
As Rebecca pondered about her shortcomings, a notification sound further in her room caught her attention. She got up, bowl of yogurt in hand, walked towards the bedroom with large steps, and turned on her human-sized phone.
A guy started conversation on the Soulkissed app.
Rebecca rushed towards her living room table and abandoned her bowl there, almost jumping back to her phone to check in on notifications.
It was a profile she had hit "like" and who liked her back. He was texting her. And he was incredibly handsome.
Greyish brown hair in a medium length cut that curled slightly on its tips. An earring in one of his ears, bright, green eyes and an easygoing smile that revealed pearly white teeth. There was an air of confidence to him, but his eyes also reflected calmness.
Rebecca's fingers hovered over the "chat" tab, hands trembling. She took a deep breath and looked up.
"Please, let my intuition be right this time."
With an ounce of courage, she opened the app.
What she met was the crappiest one-liner she had ever seen.
LIAM: Looks like we studied near each other. Guess it was only a matter of time before we started working on chemistry ;)
She burst out laughing.
..........................................
Her next crochet projects got interrupted on and off by casual conversation, a bad joke, or just rambling about the newest movie of a superhero franchise. When Rebecca was weaving the thick threads with an equally thick needle, her mind often drifted to Liam and her stitches had to be redone over and over again. Her great mood was cut off by a sinking reality. What if she was deluded again? Rebecca had to thread carefully. Liam might be a shrunken, but he's still a man. Her heartbeat started to pick up pace, but she held a hand to her chest and took deep breaths.
"No... Just let me have this one. Just this once. Please."
..........................................
The more days passed, the better Rebecca felt.
She didn't remember connecting so deeply with a person. Actually, she didn't even think her soulmate caused that kind of spark ever. Something about her and Liam clicked, their fun talks and casual chats laced with an undercurrent of tension and longing that grew stronger by the day. He sent more pictures of himself, and she sent hers. It was clear from the way things were going that they should meet in person soon.
Specially after she asked about his soulmate.
As Rebecca thought, they both have been hurt deeply, haven't they? Maybe that's why it was so easy to connect with Liam. Their experiences, the betrayal they felt by the ideal of their world, it all lingered with a bitter aftertaste that their sweet talks soothed. As she continued chatting with Liam on her bed, the idea of meeting him in person grew stronger and more assured.
Luckily, Liam had just sent a message asking the same thing.
..........................................
The next day, Rebecca did her work with a smile on her face, pop music blasting in her house, as she did her chores with a skip in her step. Things were going great. She'd leave her house only after two months now, Liam was a nice guy and she could look forward to the future again.
Finally, the mark her soulmate left in her life could slowly but surely be forgotten.
She hoped so. She had to hope things would turn out this way.
As Rebecca took a shower, got dressed with her favorite long sleeved, floral red dress and put on her best makeup art, she hummed a sweet tune and prepared her small bag with what she called "A Survival Kit for the Outside World", which was just a collection of ear muffs to handle the splitting loud sounds outside, a phone charger, water, and countless self-defense tools that she sure knew were useless against giants and humans alike, but that at least made her feel safe.
Choosing to ignore the racing beat of her heart and quickened breaths, she locked the door and went outside, leaving her safe heaven behind.
The early spring air made her shiver from head to toe. Rebecca hugged herself, phone tightly secured in her hand, shaking not only from the cold. She sent a quick message to Liam that she was on her way and took slow, trembling steps outside her porch and towards the elevated platform roads that all shrunken walked on. She took a deep breath, but this was not enough to ease her nerves.
And yet, Rebecca adjusted the scarf on her neck and pressed forward, determined to not look back.
I was gonna deliver this epilogue muuuch earlier than this, but I got burnt out. I switched to drawing to get over the burnout until it ended and I suddenly wrote it all in one sitting.
This is the end of Soulkiissed for real now! Just wanted to post a quick epilogue to end it all in a nice little bow
Thanks to y'all for the amazing support on this short story!
Quietly waiting for the next part of Soulkissed like:
I keep re reading the last part a lot atm…
Oh my gosh this makes me so happyyy I'm sorry I'm taking so long 😭 I'm not having the opportunity to write it while I'm traveling, and there's this last scene that I really want to nail down, so I'll have to delay further to the 6th of January 😭
This made my day tho, I'm glad you're looking forward to it! <3
This is the story written after the result of this poll! Thanks sm for voting and for your patience! It took a looong while aaaaah
These two characters are very dear to me. They're one of my oldest g/t ocs alongside Juhren and Sunflower, and I've even made art for them years ago. (funny how I said back then that I'd write about them soon and it took me SIX FREAKING YEARS)
Anyway, I'm very happy to finally share a snippet of their story! Enjoy! <3
Summary: Caytlin Brooke, a sophomore marine biologist student gets stranded in the middle of the sea, with no hopes of rescue. But a chance encounter challenges all she knew about marine life, and a bond is formed in the proccess.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The whales’ singing blasted like trumpets in the cave, a sign that a new Heir was about to be announced. With King Freyr’s last breath on the day before, it was a matter of time until the Ocean declared a new protector for the North Atlantic.
Merfolk swam and gathered at the center of the plaza; a large outdoors space made of polished stone. Bioluminescent creatures illuminated their path in a spiral shape, and a large crowd formed as they cheered with clicks and whistles. In front of them laid a magnificent castle, bigger than the length of two blue whales, and with towering, pointy towers. It was made of the same dark blue stone material as the vast cave, and if it wasn’t for the glowing plankton and the blue gemstones decorating the walls in spiral patterns, the intricate carvings of the castle would merge with the walls of the cavern.
Inside the palace, Queen Haliae watched her tears float upwards, the pain of losing her King like a fresh wound in her heart. On each arm, she held a baby, non-identical twins that would never meet their father. One had pale blue skin, as light as the sand on the seabed at night, and dark turquoise hair that flowed like the ocean waves. His tail was a greyish shade of blue, mimicking the pattern of a blue whale, just like his mother’s. The baby cried as the light of the Ocean’s Oracle shone like a chandelier on the ceiling, a ball-shaped crystal filled with flowing, glowing water. It was too bright for the little mer’s small, fragile eyes. The other twin on Haliae’s arm had shorter, unrulier hair as light as the sand with a distinct turquoise undertone, and his skin was a darker shade of blue. His tail was a deep blue like his father’s, mimicking a humpback whale. Unlike his brother, this baby was transfixed by the glowing orb over his head, giggling every time light pulsated from it.
The mother swam up to that crystal with unwavering determination in her eyes, eliciting a prayer to the Ocean, which flowed as easy as a whale’s call. She finished it with a personal supplication, one she whispered so only Mother Ocean would hear.
“May whoever you choose be a beacon of guidance in this kingdom, much like their father were... And may the other find his footing as the New Heir’s shadow.”
As if answering her, the Ocean’s Oracle shone a light as bright as the sun, blinding the mother, her children, and all merfolk gathered inside the palace. The crowd waiting outside whistled and twirled, knowing that the time for a new Heir was soon to come.
When the light dimmed and the Queen opened her eyes, one of her kids was glowing.
It was not the giggling child, no, for Mother Ocean chose the crying, screaming child, who now sobbed louder while glowing a vivid blue. The teardrop-shaped necklace he wore filled with cerulean, fluorescent water, a sign that he was now the New Chosen Heir.
The mother smiled, melancholy shining in her features. So, this was the one that would carry her husband’s legacy. She kissed the unchosen child on the forehead, giving him to one of the servants so she could present the chosen child to the people.
The glow dimmed from her son as Queen Haliae swam towards the outskirts of the castle, and the crowd praised their Majesty with louder cheering. She raised her kid up high, swimming further above her kingdom, and the whistling of merfolk and sea creatures alike shook the foundations of their cave. She cradled her small son in her arms, who was looking at her with pure, round eyes, unaware of the reason for the commotion around him. It was customary for the royal merfolk of the North Atlantic to name their children after the Heir was chosen, and so she thought of a name much fitting for him:
“Your name will be Aegir Sonhavet.” She whispered to his tiny ears.
…
Warm temperature of 77 degrees Fahrenheit. A soft breeze by the sea, no sign of storm in sight. No prediction of wild waves today either.
Today, Caytlin would go cruising.
She shot up from her seat at yet another cell development class, huffing as she shoved things inside her bag before waving bye to her friends and hurrying outside. Pushing her strands of light brown, shoulder-length wavy hair aside and fixing the collar of her white and blue stripped shirt, Caytlin searched for her house’s keys in her jean shorts pockets. Her hand curled around a cute dolphin keychan and she sighed in relief. Putting her keys away safely in her pocket, Caytlin walked out of the university with wide steps.
She walked, no, dashed away from the building, saying hello here and there to the people she knew in her hurried way, until arriving at the bus stop. She recovered her breath as she waited anxiously, pacing left and right, and celebrated when her bus finally arrived.
A few minutes later and Caytlin was close to her home by the harbor. She walked on the sidewalk, glancing to the calming sea to her right, the view of its gentle waves and its deep blue color filling her excitable heart with absolute joy. There it was, in the distance, anchored by the harbor: her, oops- their, well-kept cabin cruiser.
‘Dad is definitely not home today. Soo, I will definitely come back before he arrives!’ She thought, a mischievous smile on her face.
Caytlin checked the inside of her house, which was on the way to the port, to confirm her suspicions. Yep, he wasn’t home. The winds were sure favorable today.
Passing by her house to pick some lost supplies, which she piled on her arms with hurry, Caytlin strode towards the awaiting ship she and her father had for over ten years already. He had taught her everything about the ocean, from how to maneuver the cruiser to curious facts about sea animals, all of which cultivated her deep passion for marine life to begin with.
Loading the ship with supplies, Caytlin boarded it and steered out of the port, giggling with excitement.
And off she went, towards the open sea.
…
It’s jammed.
The engine is jammed.
Caytlin pushed the lever again. Nothing. She tried kicking the engine. No results. She tried opening it with a screwdriver and seeing the inside, and her body ran cold.
The wires were burnt. Completely burnt.
And she had forgotten to bring the reserve components.
“W-well, it was an old boat, after all…”
Caytlin’s heart hammered full swing. She’s in the middle of nowhere, for she cruised too far away from shore, way ahead of the safety margin she and her father had stablished. There’s no land in sight, no signal on her phone and no way of returning back safely.
“I-it’s fine! I-I’ll find a way. Dad will notice I went to the sea. Yeah.”— She said in-between panting breaths.
She’d be rescued safely, that’s it. She’ll just have to wait out in her pretty little ship until help arrives.
That is, if the ship doesn’t topple over or break down when that huge, dark cloud in the sky reaches her.
Caytlin gasped and dashed outside of the cabin to look at the storm that was nearing her location. She gripped the railing tightly.
“No way! The weather forecast said there was no rain today!”
‘But the weather isn’t always predictable’, her father had said once.
Caytlin groaned and clutched at her hair, sucking in a breath. She had to find a way out. She had to.
‘The radio! Maybe the radio would work!’ She ran back inside the cabin and pressed a number she memorized all too well – her father’s.
“No signal. Why there’s no signal?!” – Caytlin flailed her free hand while bouncing on her feet and begging under her breath, as the phone ringed in her ear. – “Please work please work please work plea – “
A heavy slamming of something against the bottom of the ship sent Caytlin flying to the ground with a scream.
“AAH! What was that?! —”
The perturbation made the ship swing side to side, as the ocean waves rolled under it. Caytlin got up, clutching her head, and left the cabin, looking for the source of the sound.
What she saw underneath sent shivers down her spine.
There was a huge shadow under the water. Bigger than two to three times her cabin cruiser, and it was moving.
Despite being knowledgeable of marine life, Caytlin’s heart still hammered against her chest.
“Must be a curious whale. Yeah! Just a whale… But…”
Realization set deep within her, heartbeat rocking inside her ribcage.
“But whale season hasn’t arrived yet –”
The shadow hit the ship in the bottom and Caytlin fell with a shriek. Supporting herself on her hands and knees, she turned around, out of breath as she feared the ship toppling over and making her fall into the cold depths below.
Just as she was reaching for the railing, a shadow covered her frame.
Caytlin hugged the metal bar and closed her eyes shut, preparing herself for the splash of a humpback whale but, nothing came.
Instead, all she heard was breathing, like the creature was right by the crook of her neck.
With wheezing breaths, Caytlin clutched the railing with clammy hands. A huge droplet of water fell to her right, hot, humid air blew on her back, making the hairs on her skin turn up to their end.
She turned around.
The visage confused her. Something light blue covered her field of vision everywhere, but it moved, no, it contracted like muscle tissue. Adorning it were dots of bright blue and teal-colored spots, trailing up the fleshy surface and towards a –
A face. There was a billboard-sized face right over her. White, round eyes covered her field of vision, the cerulean blue irises staring down at her. Its unnaturally grey pupils alone must be bigger than a basketball, massive eyelids covered them. A blink.
Caytlin screamed from the top of her lungs and tried to get up, only to slip and fall hard against the floor. A clicking sound reverberated above her and the ship swung under the creature’s blunt force. She scrambled back with wide eyes until she hit something soft and wet and – Oh gosh, it was the creature’s hand, a gigantic hand brushed against her back, claws longer than her head hovering above her.
Caytlin screamed until her throat went hoarse and the creature backed away, rocking her ship with it. She skidded over the slippery surface until she managed to stabilize long enough to sit still and stare at whatever was staring back at her, a few feet away.
The creature was more distant than before, but very much there and not going anywhere. Only when her screams subsided did Caytlin manage to try and process what the hell was going on with panting breaths.
The ocean got eerily silent, the only sound being the ripples on the sea, the huge creature’s breathing, and Caytlin gasping for air. She attempted to calm her racing heartbeat with deep breaths, one after the other, to process whatever was it that was floating right in front of her, glancing at her small frame with widened eyes.
Directly in front of her field of vision, there was a human-looking chest wider than her boat’s length. Three slits laid on top of its torso on each side, which looked like gills, as they opened and closed under the water. She looked up, and up, at something that resembled very much a male chest, blue in color, with those same splotches of bright blue adorning its – his, vast shoulders and —
That face again. Human-looking, too human and not human at the same time, with almond eyes, no visible crease on its eyelids, blue irises and translucent pupils. There were two thin lines over the eyes in the shape of eyebrows. A flat nose that resembled nothing that could be found in a human, as its nostrils opened and closed like the blowhole of a whale. The spots on his face were like freckles, a darker shade of blue than the blotches on his shoulder.
Despite the foreign appearance, he looked… Beautiful, Caytlin exhaled, lost in wonder. Wavy hair flowed from his head like waterfalls, a dark teal color with light blue tips, which curled at its ends just like waves that crashed on the beach. On one of his pointy ears, which tapered on their ends like a fin, adorned three purple jewels, made of a crystal she couldn't recognize. Around his neck there was a glowing, teardrop-shaped necklace with purple beads, while one arm had a silver-colored arm ring. His arms had dark blue spots and stripes scattered in a random fashion, and Caytlin wondered if they were natural markings or painted on.
He looked like a mermaid out of a fairytale. Except the 80-something-feet in height.
“I-I… Am I dreaming?” – Caytlin whispered.
The creature chirped in return in what sounded like a very loud whale call over the water, way louder than any whale she has heard. Caytlin yelped and covered her ears.
The creature sank itself lower in the water, sending ripples through the ocean, but not taking its huge eyes off her.
Such a creature shouldn’t exist. She must be hallucinating. Yup. That must be it. And yet, why did it look so real? Caytlin looked up at him with widened eyes.
“Y-you’re not gonna eat me, are you?”
She only received a confused noise in return. The creature didn’t open its mouth, yet the sound coming from its throat was just as loud as if it was from a speaker. It must be its way of communication, similar to that of whales and dolphins. That was…
Fascinating.
With buckling knees, Caytlin got up, maintaining eye contact with the creature while clutching the nearby railing with all her might. The merman stayed on its place, observing Caytlin with what she guessed was mighty curiosity. The expressions looked so human… It was like she could see what it – he – was thinking. He widened his eyes as he watched Caytlin get up, sucking in a breath and closing the gills on the side of his neck.
“H-huh, looks like you aren’t going to eat me. Phew.” She sighed and gave the creature a crooked smile.
The creature, however, looked down at her with a confused, but curious expression.
And then it got closer.
“Oh gosh, no no no –! “
He raised himself more above water, waves crashing as he loomed over her with a long shadow and – yep, definitely bigger than 80 feet – Caytlin made a note inside her head. She had swum next to blue whales before and what was before her was certainly bigger than a blue whale, so pretty much over 100 feet tall. When the creature noticed she was shaking and backing away, it raised its eyebrows and sank a little to the ocean, with only its face at view.
It came closer to her, anyway.
Caytlin gasped and sealed her eyes shut when the merperson got so close she could feel his breath – and oh, he was carnivorous alright – her heart racing as she gritted her teeth, pressing herself so hard against the wall outside the cabin she thought she would merge with it. It seemed to be observing her, looking her up and down with a curious expression, moving closer and leaning his large hand over the boat, which was on the verge of capsizing as the metal groaned under the heavy weight.
His eyes observed her just like she has seen whales do before. Was this creature intelligent? Was it a fish? A mammal? Caytlin had so many questions…
She slowly got up again, not taking her eyes off the creature, and sighed shakily, calming her accelerated heart.
If she wasn’t hallucinating right now, this was the greatest discovery human kind had ever seen. And she was its first witness!
Caytlin took one step closer towards the merperson – ‘Yeah, I’m really going crazy’ –she thought, raising her hand with a nervous expression. She knew she had to be calm but, it was so difficult! His face rose far above her and she had to crane her neck up to meet his eyes. Taking a deep breath and closing her own eyes to disperse her fear, Caytlin reached out with a trembling hand, little by little until –
A gasp echoed from above her and she opened her eyes.
She had touched the creature’s nose and he looked at her tiny hand with widened eyes. Caytlin raised her eyebrows. For that moment, time had stopped, her green eyes lost in his. It felt so…So out of this world. She smiled, noticing how both were so curious about each other.
And soon the creature acted the same way.
Caytlin yelped when a wet appendage – the mer’s finger, she realized – caressed her arm up and down as it peered at her with those glossy, cerulean eyes. A sigh ruffled Caytlin’s hair, and she gulped down her nervousness as the creature touched her arm, claws grazing her, heartbeat rocking loudly in her chest.
Satisfied, the creature backed away from her and started lowering his head back to the ocean, with a frown on his gigantic face. ‘Was he sad…?’
When the creature sunk his face completely, Caytlin realized with sinking dread that it was leaving her alone.
“Wait!” she shouted, reaching out towards the ocean.
The merperson raised his torso up again, surprising Caytlin as she fell on her back towards the floor with a yelp. ‘Ow, I really have to stop falling down.’ – she thought. He sunk his body again, whistling and clicking with an apologetic expression, and left only his eyes visible. Caytlin got up and sighed in relief when the merman returned. An impulsive idea lightened up in her head: She could ask for the merman’s help!
But… How would she do this?
“I’m, um, you see, I need help!” – she said, waving her hands around. The merman only tilted his head in confusion.
“Oh, u-um, how am I going to do this…” – Caytlin looked down pensively until an idea popped up, and pointed to the vast horizon behind her with her hand.
“Um, shore, land! I need to get back there! See?”
She made a motion of sea waves with one arm, while cupping her other hand over it, mimicking the vague shape of a boat.
“Boat, um, crashed!”
She ran to her cabin, which made the merman raise his head above water, and tried to turn the engine back on, which failed with loud noises.
“S-see? It’s not working! And, and –” Caytlin ran back to the railing, where the creature looked down at her with a puzzled expression.
“So I need help! Got it?” she gave him a tentative smile. The merman’s frown got deeper.
Yeah, he didn’t seem to have understood a thing. Caytlin groaned and sat on the floor, holding her face with both hands.
“This won’t work…”
And just as she lowered her head, loud splashes sounded all around her. The merman was probably going back to the ocean. It was better this way. Help would arrive soon, anyway.
But when Caytlin kept hearing the sounds, she opened her eyes and looked around. What resembled a blue whale’s tail appeared in her field of vision, splashing gently around her. The creature was swimming around her boat, looking it over. As if analyzing it. Her eyes widened in wonder. Yeah, there was no way he didn’t have similar human levels of intelligence. His behavioral patterns were unlike any other animal she has seen. The merman swam back to be in front of Caytlin, with his eyes lit up, as if he had understood something. He covered her once again with his shadow, looked down at her and nodded.
That was the only warning Caytlin got.
The creature’s heavy hand collided against the bottom of her boat with a loud thump, sending her sliding backwards with a yell until she hit the wall of her cabin again. The boat moved towards the direction Caytlin had pointed before in her previous attempts to communicate. She got up on shaky knees, supporting herself until she entered the cabin, and looked straight ahead, widening her eyes in realization.
The creature was moving the boat back to shore. It was helping her. It had understood what she meant!
Caytlin giggled, leaning over the front window with a gleeful expression on her face. The boat glided quickly on the ocean with the help of the merman’s hand, and from the distance, loud splashes resounded from the powerful flaps of the creature’s tail. Caytlin walked out of the cabin and looked up to the merman, who blinked down at her.
“It’s working!” she raised her hands in triumph.
And then, just when Caytlin thought she could not be more surprised, the creature glanced back at her, and the corners of his lips tilted up.
He smiled.
Her jaw went slack. She could not believe this. This mermaid-like creature, despite his gigantic and intimidating size, not only was intelligent enough that they managed to communicate somehow, but was also helping her get to shore. Not to mention his many human-like mannerisms. She was so… So mesmerized. She gazed at his focused face.
‘I need to know more about him.’
But the rocking of the boat followed by a complete stop made her leave her blissful moment. The merman had stopped swimming, so Caytlin turned around, realizing why. She could see the shore in the distance, close enough so she could be seen and rescued, but far enough so that the creature could slip back into the ocean unnoticed. She looked back up at him, who answered with a sympathetic frown, as if to say “That’s as far as I’ll go.” Caytlin looked down.
“Right, guess this is it, huh?”
She approached his face once again, capturing every single detail in it, hoping to write it all down on her journal later that day. Caytlin reached out a hand for him, who complied, leaning his face against it, as she felt the wet and smooth texture of his skin.
“Thank you… I just hope I can see you again.”
Caytlin looked up, and backed away, leaving space for the creature to dive deep into the ocean again. It lingered by her company for a few moments, as if to also capture her every detail, and with a nod, he dived back into the ocean.
…
The rescue team didn’t take long to find her, even in the pouring rain of the heavy storm. When she stepped safely onto the beach, soaked from head to toe, her dad Charles hugged her tightly, scolding her right after. He was mad, but that was understandable. She wasn’t a teenager anymore, but she sure acted recklessly like one. Caytlin took her dad’s sermon with a saddened but understanding expression, nodding at everything he said, even if her mind drifted somewhere else, back to that encounter by the sea.
Later at night she wrote everything down, from the moment the engine got jammed to the time the merman swam away, as well as observations regarding the creature’s fascinating behavior and appearance, all in precise detail.
Caytlin plopped into her bed, looking at the ceiling with longing and determination.
‘I’ll definitely find you again.’
…
Looking up at the vast stone ceiling of his room. Aegir’s mind drifted back to that excitable, fearful yet curious human face. He remembered the way her tiny hand touched the tip of his nose, how her dry skin brushed against his fingertip.
Humans were, fascinating. She was fascinating.
‘I want to see her again.’
Aegir raised his body up, and secretly swam out of his room towards the dark of the night ocean. He left the cavern, where his kingdom resided in, with a silent whoosh of his tail, swimming up to the surface. Taking in the moonlight, Aegir closed his eyes, opening his nostrils to breathe in the fresh air, and leaning on his back over the ocean’s surface, letting the relaxing currents drift him away.
Dread sank heavy in his mind.
He had just made a grave, grave mistake.
And he did not want to go back on it.
Aegir looked at the moonlight, lost in the recollection of that human’s face, yearning to find her again.
Better late than never! This took a while to edit but I'm happy with the result. Juhren and Sunflower are my oldest g/t ocs, I've written their first meeting a thousand times before, but lost most of the writing when my old phone broke. This time, I've reimagined their scene, so I'm excited to show y'all how these two had a really rocky start. Hope you enjoy!
Warning for mild descriptions of violence and death.
..............................
Run.
Run.
Run.
A branch caught on her hair and she fell backwards. Her head throbbed from pain. She scrambled up. Dirt caked her back.
Run.
Run.
Just keep running.
Don't look back.
Twigs and leaves snagged on her skirt and ripped holes in it. Heavy thuds echoed in the distance, in the burning village she left behind. The remains of a roar were carried by the wind as she ran faster, out of breath.
"They're here. Sunflower, they're after you." Alba had said.
"Just run and don't look back."
She passed through trees, stumbled on roots, twisting her ankle as she cried out in pain. But she continued.
Get away. As far away from them.
Run. Run. Run.
Run.
....
She heaved, slumping down by the base of a tree. Her heart thumped inside her, pounding so hard she thought it'd break through her chest. Sweat and dirt covered her and blood dripped from her head, golden blonde hair disheveled and full of leaves and sticks.
Her shallow breathing slowed down, the forest sounds became measly chirps of birds in the distance.
The feeling inside her started small at first, like a knot in her throat, an invisible lump forcing her to cough. The coughs got louder and harsher, throat burning from the motions. She spat on the dirt.
Then a tear fell. One. Two. They fell in successions as she hiccupped and leaned over the earth. She held down her whimpers. She can't be heard. She can't be seen. Yet the sobs still came out from her trembling lips. Sunflower clutched the dirt and curled up on the ground, letting out a constrained wailing.
The houses crumbling apart. She saw it. She saw someone's terrified face before being crushed underfoot. Blood splattered everywhere. The screams, so many screams suddenly cut off as teeth closed in on them, splitting them in half. She looked up, the stone walls of houses already collapsed. She looked around, and bodies scattered across the cracked pavement, limbs distorted as bones protruded from the lifeless corpses. The beasts screamed and laughed, kicking and stomping over everything they could find.
Then the guards from the capital came, and one flew past her, and he looked at her with those haunting, glowing eyes, widening in realization.
It could see her lack of kiira. It could see what she was.
"A human! There's a human in here!"
The flying cavalry would not get to her yet, as they were busy containing the rampage, Sunflower knew that. But it's already too late, too dangerous, and there's no safe home to turn to anymore. Alba clutched her hand tight and sneaked her out of the burning orphanage, giving her a bag of supplies as if she had prepared for this years ago.
"Run, Sunflower. Run. Follow the map I gave you, and run."
Sunflower didn't have time to hug her. Didn’t have time to say goodbye to the director and the kids. She didn't even know if they're alive.
All she knew was to run, and go to the point marked on the map.
Sunflower dried her tears and got up on shaky knees, hissing when her weight leaned on the sprained ankle. Stumbling forward, she breathed heavily from the strain, clutching her bag tight.
No matter what. She had to run. And seek help from someone she did not know. "She" would know how to help her, Alba had said. "She" would keep her safe.
So Sunflower pushed forward, even while her vision got blurry, and even when she didn't notice her body falling limply to the ground, as her vision turned black.
....
"Juhren, look!"
Sunflower came running to the clearing of the forest. Their clearing. Juhren wondered what would they do today when he saw her coming excitedly towards him, golden hair flowing in the wind. Would they climb a tree again? Would they play hide and seek? Or would Sun like to hear one more of his stories from the outside world?
He smiled when she stopped in front of him, her tiny frame two heads shorter. Her green eyes shone from glee, and her hands were folded behind her back as if she was hiding something.
"What's this?" - Juhren leaned his head to the side, smirking when he saw what she was hiding. - "You know you're bad at surprises, right?"
Sunflower backed away and pouted. - "Not fair! You're no fun!"
Her pout disappeared as quickly as it came when she brought her hand forward.
"I just wanted to gift you something since it's your birthday today!"
She motioned for him to come closer, and Juhren leaned over in front of her, round eyes looking curiously.
And with a jump, she put the flower crown over his head.
"These are special flowers that never die! If it wilts, you only need a bit of water and they'll bloom again!"
Juhren took the crown from his head and looked at the tiny blue flowers with wonder.
"Woah..."
Sunflower beamed. "Do you like it?"
He put the flower crown back on his head, glancing down at his best friend, a smile on his face. She knew how much he liked plants. She picked that special type just for him. His heart fluttered with joy.
"I love it! Thank you, Sun."
"Yay!"
Shu hugged Juhren tightly and he giggled as she hung on him like he was a tree. With a mischievous grin, he lifted her from the ground and she yelped as he carried her like a sack of potatoes.
"Hey! Put me down!" Sunflower squirmed and laughed, failing to sound serious.
"It's not my fault that you're so light!"
"It's just you that keeps getting taller!"
....
She woke up with a jolt.
Sunflower sat up, her head pounding against her skull. She clutched it with her hand, recoiling when dried blood rubbed against it. Is it too serious? She hoped not. The sky was covered by towering sequoias, a few rays of sunshine passing through the dense foliage. Her heart rocked faster inside her.
I was knocked out for too long.
She got up, struggling under her buckling knees, and trudged forward with that sharp pain on her ankle. Her head thrummed annoyingly, but she had to keep going. She'd get help from Alba's friend, and then she'd be able to rest. Sunflower walked faster through the forest, stumbling, and flinching from the pain, yet she continued forward.
I won't die here. I won't die, I won't die.
I won't die.
She repeated this inside her head, focusing on the leaf-covered path ahead of her, the sound of birds and the rustling of leaves going unnoticed by her ears.
Until heavy thunder resounded around her.
Sunflower turned stone cold, her eyes widened and panic bubbled up inside her chest. She darted her head. Left. Right. Behind her? No. In front of her. The steps were getting louder, faster, closer, multiplying in intensity and – oh god, there’s multiple of them – and coming in her direction like a fleeing herd.
She cried out and ran, the pain in her ankle all but forgotten. Behind a tree? Inside the bushes? – The steps got so intense she struggled to keep on her feet. Sunflower ran aimlessly until – There was a hollow by the base of a tree. She ducked inside it and crawled as far away from the entrance as she could, vision obscured by darkness. She covered her arms and legs with mud and dirt, hoping and praying it was enough to hide her scent. Her gut twisted and turned.
If this didn't work, she would die.
Tears scurried down Sunflower’s face, burning as they traveled on the cuts of her cheeks. She pumped air in and out of her lungs, covering her mouth with a trembling hand, smelling the scent of mold and dirt. Don’t cry. Don’t scream. Don’t make a noise. The thundering got louder and closer, but she wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t move.
Booming steps followed by ugly laughter echoed above. Sunflower muffled a scream, eyes shooting wide open. There were too many. The nordem were all around her. The earth vibrated with each step, and their deafening voices ringed in her ears. She curled up further, hoping the tree bark would engulf her and swallow her whole.
They chatted about raiding a village as if it was a walk to the market. Bile rose in Sunflower's throat, burning rage threatening to consume her. All that carnage, just for fun?! No. She can't get mad now. Just keep still and they wouldn't find her. Just keep still and –
"Hey, do you smell that?"
"Now that you mention it, the air has some scent to it."
Her eyes threatened to pop from her sockets. Shaking hands, reach for the dirt, scrub it over your skin. They can't hear you – Their hearing is too good – They cannot hear you moving. She picked another clump of mud, shaking so much half of it fell, and rubbed it on her other arm. They can't smell you, they can't –
"I've never smelled a scent like this before." – a gruff voice thundered.
Sunflower's hairs turned up to their ends. It was right outside. She could see its boots in front of the opening. Just stay still. They won't find her. They will walk away. Just stay still.
"Must be an animal."
"Or a different type of kiirian." Another nordem sneered.
“I suggest we look for it.”
“First one to find it gets to keep it.”
She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe. Sunflower gagged as air escaped her lungs. Her head was banging against her skull. They won't find her they won't find her they won't –
"What are you doing here."
The nordem flinched at the sound of a new voice. It sounded younger than the previous ones, yet just as loud as any other giant, with a gruffness to it.
Not another one! Sunflower scooted away from the hollow’s opening; eyes tightly shut.
"And what do you think we're doing, brat? This is our patrol route!"
"This area has already been covered up." - the younger yet deep voice replied. - "the next patrolling places are supposed to be over there. If you don't wanna miss out on the 'fun', you should head out the other way." – it said matter-of-factly.
A series of growls bellowed above her and she covered her ears with shaky hands.
"Fine! Let's do what the boy says for now."
"Tsk. If there's nothing there..."
"But be careful, kid." – the deepest voice of the group rumbled lowly. – "if what you said is a lie, then you know who's the first person that's gonna hear 'bout it."
Silence.
Sunflower froze. The multiple nordem left, only one remained. The deafening silence stretched between the sequoia trees, and she sucked in the humid air from the hollow. Sunflower cut her whimpers off with a clamped hand over her mouth, holding her breath. Hot tears dampened her hand.
A step. Another one. The earth shook. Don't make a sound. Don't make a sound. Bile rose in her throat. The meticulous, slow steps banged against the floor, making trees creak in protest and the leaves on the ground to rise and fall. The earthquakes got louder. It was coming closer. She thought she would vomit. Her vision blurred, her stomach churned, her head pounded each time the heavy steps collided against the soil and – No. It couldn’t have found her. It couldn’t but –
The truth dawned on her. If the other nordem could smell her, then this one could smell her too.
Her eyebrows raised in horror.
"I know you're here."
Sunflower pressed herself deeper into the the tree, heart hammering against her ribs as if begging to escape. It knew. It knew she was there, and the thought suffocated her inside. Was it taunting her? Sunflower couldn't breathe. The air came scarcely in her hurting lungs and tears dripped on the bruised hand that covered her mouth, mingling with dirt and blood. Closing her eyes, the sickening nausea grew deeper. She'd faint if she kept this up. But she couldn't. She wouldn't. No. Sunflower would not die here. She can't. So she forced herself awake.
Maybe, she still had a chance to survive.
The steps grew closer, each impact seemed to reverberate through Sunflower’s very bones. A relentless drumbeat that echoed in her ears. The ground wielded to the beast, trembling beneath its feet and causing dust to rise and itch inside her nostrils. She quivered so violently she couldn't keep her shaking hand pressed against her mouth.
When the earthquakes stopped, her source of light was covered by shadow. The hollow's entrance.
It was right in front of it.
"Come out."
A deep and powerful voice rumbled inside her ears and a shiver crawled up her spine. Sunflower moved her neck to the right, turning her head towards the entrance.
Her breath caught in her throat.
An eye. An orange eye with slitted pupils fixated on her with an intensity that froze her in place. It could see her. It could see her entirely. Her heart tried to break free from inside her bones, hands going cold as tears dripped down her face. She didn't try to contain her sobs anymore as they escaped from her throat and wracked her frame.
"I'll ask one more time. Come out."
The reverberating voice boomed with an even tone. No emotion could be seen from its eye. It commanded her with confidence, knowing that she had no other choice.
She had no other choice.
No. There must be a way. Sunflower turned her back to the eye and dug her nails in the tree wall. She gripped her knife with both hands to steady her shaking and hit the wood repeatedly. She could create a path. The hollow was small. The creature couldn't reach her. It won't reach her. The wood groaned as Sunflower made a dent into it, hitting the tree harder and harder with desperate grunts. She can get out. He won't reach her. She won't die. She can't die.
A deep sigh sounded outside. A gust of wind blew on her back. She shivered, but continued. Just keep going. Trembling hands wielded the knife, creating a fist-sized hole in the tree bark.
Something small fell to the ground next to her with a tap. She flinched. Turning to her right, she saw it: a white seed, as small as a pine, sank under the earth.
What is that?
Thorns sprouted from the dirt and shoved Sunflower away from the tree wall. She yelped and scrambled up, but another branch emerged from a seed and pushed her away. Screaming, she crawled back towards the spot, digging her boots and her hands between the plants, but they formed a wall in front of her that pushed and pulled until she fell, sending her to the entrance. Towards the nordem.
The roots forced Sunflower to face it, watching that unexpressive orange eye grow as she came closer. She writhed and struggled in vain, the vines pushing her with a force that no common plant could, thorns cutting her arms and back and dragging her forward, even as she dug her boot in the earth and pushed back against it with all her strength. The eye got bigger and bigger as she approached it, slitted pupils shrinking as it focused on her. She shook her head from side to side.
"No! No!! PLEASE!! –"
The eye was gone. A calloused palm appeared in her field of vision. No matter how much she struggled, the vines wouldn't bulge. She was dumped on the awaiting hand as it curled around her waist, trapping her in a loose fist. Her stomach plummeted as she was raised in the air, wind blowing inside her ears. Even if she was trapped, even if her heart wanted to leap out of her, Sunflower fought, feet dangling underneath her. Her arms were free and she clawed and punched the hard skin, yet no matter how much force she used, not a single scratch was made on it.
The motion stopped and she encountered its face, seeing the pair of eyes that stared at her without an ounce of emotion. She shivered under the nordem's grip, sobbing, pounding her fists against its hand.
"No! I beg you! Don't kill me!!"
The nordem opened its mouth to speak, but choked on its unspoken words. The forest got silent as Sunflower wavered up and down. The stillness and the shaking of its hand made her open her tear-stricken eyes, looking up.
The giant stared at her with widened eyes, its irises darting left and right. Color drained from its massive face as he looked at her like she's a ghost.
The contrast of its expression made her catch details of its features, a sickening nausea growing in her insides.
The orange eyes. The tanned skin. The short, spiky auburn hair.
Her body froze solid, her eyebrows shot up, dread and recognition flashing through her eyes.
No. No. Anyone but him – !
The nordem's lips trembled as it opened his mouth, exhaling over her. Sharp teeth appeared as it spoke, and the pang in her chest stung harder.
"...Sun...?" It whispered; doubt laced its deep, booming voice.
"Juhren..." - she quavered back his name.
...
Time was running out. His chest got heavy as each breath seemed harder and harder to take. His change would be today. He's sure. He knew that his eleventh birthday would be the last he'd celebrate with his friend.
He'd never see Sunflower again.
He stopped by the clearing where they always met. She wasn't there yet. Juhren tightened his grip around the flower crown necklace, its delicate petals protected by a square glass casing. Would he even be able to use it anymore? Would he even be able to see his friend's gift? He kneeled and steadied his heaving breaths, heart beating faster and faster as minutes tickled by and as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. Everything hurt. From his bones to his muscles, even the simple movement of breathing made him clutch his eyes shut in pain. If he let himself unchecked, he'll grow. Just keep himself together, until he can see Sun. Until he can say goodbye to her.
Why was she taking so long?
Just when the thought of leaving crossed Juhren's mind, he saw Sunflower walking towards him. Hugging a book with a tight grip. Her face somber and serious.
"Sun? What happened?" - he said in a trembling, gentle tone, hoping it'd hide the pain he felt deep inside his bones.
She threw the heavy book on the ground in front of him and opened it with a forceful motion. Her eyes were glinting with anger. For someone so small, she looked terrifying. Dread sank deeper in him.
What was going on?
"Look at it." - she pointed at the page.
The book showed the nordem.
His heart sank and his mouth went dry. The pain under his joints screamed louder as if reacting to the information.
She found out.
Sunflower found out what he is.
"Why did you hide it from me?!" She shouted at him, cowering as bitter tears streamed down her face.
"Sun, wait! I-I can explain-"
"NO! I trusted you!!" She cried out.
Sunflower trembled as she shook her head incredulously, tears scurrying down her face. Juhren reached a hand out to her. She was so much shorter than him now. How would she react when...?
As he thought, it's impossible. She'd be terrified. She would never…
Sunflower shouted at him again.
"W-was that your plan? Lure me out so you could kill me?"
"No! I'd never do anything like that!
"Liar!"
Sunflower walked backwards towards the path where she had come from. She sobbed loudly, her face a mix of sadness and anger. Juhren wanted to run after her, to hug her and say he'd never hurt her. Ever.
But she was right. He lied to her.
The pain in his heart grew stronger.
He didn't deserve to see her anymore.
Sunflower's face changed to betrayal. She turned her back to him and ran away, not before saying those two words that would stick into his mind like weeds in fertile soil.
"You're a monster."
...
He uttered her name and went silent, the grip around her loosening slightly. That previously unexpressive face now had guilt charging its monumental features. Sunflower found that ironic. The feelings from those bygone days felt like a distant memory, its wounds all but healed. But now that he was before her, gigantic and menacing like every other beast, she couldn’t help but laugh inside at the absurdity of it all. That pitiful face didn’t match him. Didn’t match the likes of his loathsome kind.
Sunflower looked down and smiled bitterly, her downcast eyes focusing on the flesh all around her.
"It's like I've said that time..." - she mumbled. Her hometown flashed back in her mind, the visage of those animals destroying it with joy in their faces. Sunflower wondered if Juhren was there, grinning alongside them in their bloodthirsty rampage. Her heart grew heavy.
"…Guess you're really a monster after all."
Juhren sucked in a breath and the fear inside Sunflower resurfaced all the way back with a chill down her spine. Oh no. Did she say too much? But just as Sunflower flinched and closed her eyes, a powerful gust of wind blew around her as she was brought down to the ground.
Sunflower scrambled up, backing away from the nordem that stood up and towered over her. Craning her neck up and up and up, Sunflower felt cold as she took in Juhren's massive height. Gosh, he looked unrecognizable, his appearance no different from the beasts she saw. He became just like them. His torso was covered by the leather strap of his shoulder armor, black pants tied by a leather belt, with multiple bottles of seeds attached to it. On his back he carried two axes that were as tall as a house. The only recognizable features, the hair and his eyes, turned obscure as his face stretched out far above her. He became emotionless like before, the stillness making her think he’d step on her in cold blood.
Just as she was readying herself to run for her life, he spoke in that thunderous voice. Not a trace of the voice she remembered.
Sunflower knew for certain, this nordem had no trace of the friend she once knew.
"You're right. I am."
Her eyes widened and her lips trembled while she stepped away, her neck almost breaking from looking so high up.
"Go."
That powerful command snapped Sunflower out of her shock and she didn't give a second thought before bolting to the opposite direction, even as her ankle throbbed and she stumbled, running as far as her legs could take her.
She was right. She was right from the very beginning. Their friendship was a mistake. She knew it was back in that day. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. Then why, why? Flashes of their childhood, their bright smiles as they played together, all the things they talked about, all the things he showed her – Why? The tears dried as she ran faster. Was all of it a trick? Was all of it fake? Did none of that matter to him? Are the nordem so despicable once they grow that they dismiss any memory they’ve made with those smaller than themselves? She trusted him. She trusted him. That feeling of betrayal resurfaced, the healed remains of that buried wound aching deep inside her chest.
Yet a lingering thought, albeit too small for her conscious mind to notice, slowly but surely stilled its place deep inside her:
Why did he let me go?
Sunflower looked behind her. But when she saw that the large silhouette was nowhere to be found, she turned forward, the drifting thoughts all but gone.
And she ran. Never once looking back.
…
It's been a while since she disappeared in the woods. Her smell vanished from the spot ages ago. Yet, for some reason, he expected to recognize a blur of green and yellow somewhere, as if she had no sense of self-preservation. Only that for her to return to someone like him.
He’s still so naive.
Juhren looked down at his hand, clenching and unclenching it as if a phantom of her was still in his grip. The annoying knot inside his throat didn't want to go away, and that dull ache settled its place in his chest. He sighed, closing his eyes. Opening them again.
